


The Sky Is All Around Us

by Areiton, Catchclaw



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Academy Era, Angst, Banter, Bottom Kirk, Bottom McCoy, Bottom Spock, Christmas, Dirty Talk, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, First Kiss, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Masturbation, Memories, Mind Meld, Mind Sex, Multi, Mutual Pining, Pining, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Sexual Fantasy, Shore Leave, Top McCoy, Top Spock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-11-17 11:15:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 37,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11274318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: While on shore leave on remote Evaline IX, Kirk suffers head trauma that neither McCoy nor Spock alone can repair. But if they work together in a joint mind meld? Maybe there’s hope.





	1. Chapter 1

There wasn’t a damn thing of value on the planet Evaline IX except space: long, uninterrupted acres of it, fields and forests and hills. Nobody had ever gotten around to naming the four continents, even, not officially, though the biggest one, the one they were currently sailing over, had a nickname: Jem. Maybe it’d been the name of the fool who’d first stumbled over these vast, empty shores, in search of inhabitants who it turned out were long since gone; they hadn’t died out, the archeologists figured, they’d just up and left a couple thousand years before, leaving the few and far remains of their civilization behind.

Maybe, Leonard McCoy figured, as the shuttle made a wide, clean arc over a silver slip of a river, they’d just gotten bored. If it was quiet out this way now, it would’ve been fucking silent two millennia ago, with life on the nearest system, Deneva, just a gleam in the universe’s eye.

Now, what population there was was concentrated on Jem. There were a few dozen outposts, maybe fifty clusters of cabins too small to really be called towns, and hundreds of properties like the one they were heading for, places that held a single house, many set so long in the land that they’d almost become part of it again.

Privacy. That was the other thing Evaline had in spades. A lack of prying eyes.

“Sam hasn’t been out here in ages,” Kirk said. He swiveled from the co-pilot’s seat and gave them both an easy grin. “He used to come out here a couple times a month, at least. But now, with the baby, I guess it’s a lot harder for him to get away.”

McCoy thought of Jo, of the insistent curl of her tiny fist around his fingers, the weight of her head on his shoulder. Was she really gonna be eight this year? Gods, he was getting old. “Yeah,” he said, almost to himself. “It is.”

Jim hadn’t heard him, he’d turned back to console, and if Spock had, he didn’t give any sign. Instead, the Vulcan’s forehead was plastered to the durasteel, practically, staring at the countryside as the shuttle slowed and began to lower itself to meet it. He’d been kinda quiet the whole trip out from the _Enterprise_ , but the closer to the cabin they’d gotten, the more mum he’d become.

Leonard leaned over Spock’s shoulder. “It is lovely, isn’t it?”

“It is, doctor,” Spock said. “It is.”

McCoy had never been out this way before, but in some ways, the landscape itself looked familiar; Jim had been jabbering at him about it, spinning yarns about his brother’s place out here since the Academy, but the holos he’d shown Leonard hadn’t done it any justice.

Maybe he’d just been in space so long, hung up among the stars, that any unspoiled vista would have made him feel like this, as if he were taking his first deep breath in a long, long time.

Together, McCoy and Spock watched the cerulean valley unfolding beneath them as the shuttle descended towards a gaggle of plum-colored trees nestled against the side of a hill. “You do realize,” McCoy said, tucking his voice under the sound of the engines, “that Jim’s gonna be insufferably happy out here, right?”

Spock’s eyes met his, their reflections colliding in the viewport. “Given the events of the last several months, I believe he has earned it.”

McCoy’s mouth lifted. “Yeah, he has, hasn’t he?”

“What are you two whispering about?” Kirk called.

Leonard raised his head and stuck out his tongue. “None of your damn business, sir.”

Kirk laughed. “We’re on shore leave, Bones. No _sir_ s or _captain_ s for the next fortnight, is that clear?”

“Sir,” McCoy said, tossing him a messy salute as the shuttle settled on the soft ground. “Yes, sir.”

The pilot, a commercial jobber named Teague, helped them unload their gear and then leaned out of the hatch, the breeze whipping her hair into rose-colored waves. “I’ll be back in a few days, gents, to see how you’re getting on,” she said. “You get into any trouble, though, give me a shout on your communicator.”

Kirk held up his hands. “No communicators, ma’am. We’re trying to resist the temptations of the real world for a while.”

She raised an eyebrow. “But there’s an emergency comm in your place, yes? It’s against the law to be out this far without one.”

“Yeah, of course,” Jim said, all blond hair and Boy Scout. “We don’t look like lawbreakers, do we?”

Teague eyed them, her dark lips twitching with a smile. “I don’t think you want me to answer that.”

“Probably best if you didn’t,” McCoy said.

The pilot disappeared through the hatch, laughing, and a moment later, the shuttle was turning up into the lavender clouds again, sailing past the wind as it disappeared in the evening sky.

“Gentlemen,” Kirk said, pivoting to face the little house edged into the trees. “Welcome to Evaline.”

It wasn’t much to look at, inside or out, but then, that was mostly the point.

“This, my friends, is true R & R,” Jim said as he led them through the house, pointing out the two bedrooms, the tiny kitchen and small living space. “No food synthesizer, no permanent comm link, just a hearth and all the old books you can read--there are more shelves in your room here, Spock, see?” He swept them down the narrow hall and back into the living space, one framed by a great window and the front door. “I’ll set my cot up in here, by the fire,” Kirk said, “and you can have the other bedroom, Bones, all right?”

“Mmmm,” McCoy said. “Sure.”

He was pretty damn certain Spock knew that he and Jim slept in the same bed most nights. Hell, Spock had served with them for four years, been their friend almost as long, and he was a long way from blind. But Jim was still skittish about putting their relationship in Spock’s face, especially in such tight quarters, and it would have been almost endearing, his shyness, if he hadn’t been the one to insist they all come out here together for one very particular reason--a reason they’d not shared with Spock. McCoy’s gut gave a nervous swoop. Not yet, anyway.

Kirk came to a halt by the door, his face as bright as Leonard had seen it in ages. “Yep, rest and relaxation, my friends, with no distractions to tempt us from the serious business of resting our tired fucking minds.” He clapped his hands together. “So! What do you think?”

“May I retire to my room, captain?” Spock said. “It was a long journey, and I find that I am in need of some repose.”

Jim blinked, and McCoy watched the joy slide from his eyes, just a little. “Yeah, of course,” he said. “And you don’t have to ask for my permission, Spock. That’s the whole point of this little, ah, excursion. Just--do whatever you feel like, all right?”

And Spock must have been tired because he didn’t take the bait, simply nodded and headed back down the short hall, to the room at the back of the house, and closed the door.

Kirk looked at Leonard, a little frown caught on the edges of his mouth. “Am I pushing him? You’ll tell me if I’m pushing, right?”

McCoy reached for him, spread his arms around Jim’s body and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “You’re not pushing,” he said. “Let the man take his time out in peace. Two days in transport is lot for anybody, even a Vulcan.”

Kirk sighed and settled into the doctor’s embrace. “I don’t want to fuck this up, Bones. I really, really don’t.”

“I know. But trust me, you won’t.” McCoy found Kirk’s mouth and bit gently at his lower lip. “‘Cause I won’t let you.”

The night came quickly, the dark draping itself over the fields and easing gently over the little house. Spock emerged to help Kirk build a fire and the three of them gathered around it, ate a few provisions, didn’t talk a hell of a lot. The silence was comfortable, though, and almost as rumpled as Spock’s hair, still askew from his meditation or power nap or whatever. He sat in a precarious-looking wooden chair, a counterpoint to the ancient armchair McCoy was settled in, and he almost didn’t look like himself, McCoy thought, without that familiar sleek shine.

Kirk sat on the floor as they ate, his shoulder brushing McCoy’s knee. McCoy ached to touch him, to spear his fingers through Jim’s hair or tease the back of his neck with a barely-there touch, the kind that would have Kirk leaning back into Leonard’s hand, impatient.

But he didn’t, and maybe that was why after dinner, after Spock had retired once more and they’d unfolded Jim’s cot before the warm, eager flames, he’d flopped back into the armchair and yanked Jim into his lap.

“Oh,” Kirk said, soft, as McCoy kissed his throat, drew his hands over the curve of Kirk’s ass. “Oh, this is not a good idea, Len.”

“Why not?”

Kirk shivered, his hips rocking. “Because. Because I don’t know if I can--”

Leonard grinned. “What? If you can keep your mouth shut?” He nipped at Kirk’s jaw and Jim made a raw, hungry sound and glared down at him, guns blazing. “You’re gonna have to, though, aren’t you?” McCoy said. “You don’t want to wake Spock up, have him come out here to see what all the noise is about.” He found Kirk’s mouth, teased it wide with his tongue, and Kirk groaned, clutched at his shoulders. “You don’t want him to see you like this, do you, honey? All wound up and ready for me.”

“You,” Kirk said, scrabbling at McCoy’s fly, at his own, “are a bastard.”

He came in McCoy’s fist and again on his cock, his head tipped back as he moved in Leonard’s lap, groaning against Leonard’s palm, his skin like gold in the firelight.

 

*****

 

The next morning dawned like a good blush, pink roses rising from the horizon to meet the crown of the sky. Outside, the air was filled with the soft stutters of nature, of the wind in the trees and the sound of Jim’s laughter and the sight of Spock’s smile, the tiny twitch of his mouth he probably thought nobody could see.

“I’ll have you know,” Kirk said over burned eggs and something that might once have been toast, “that the Kirks are renowned for their adaptation of the culinary arts to the back and beyond. Campfire cooking is my specialty, Spock.”

Spock stared at his plate, at the captain, and back. “Perhaps you are fortunate that your current position does not depend on your ability to prove such a claim.”

“What?” Kirk said over McCoy’s snorts, pointing a spoon in Spock’s direction. “You think you can do better?”

“No,” Spock said. “I know it.”

He built a careful fire in the pit behind the house and spent the afternoon tending it, Kirk stretched out in the shade nearby--ostensibly reading, actually snoring--McCoy propped up in a rickety chair he’d dragged out from the house, and by the early evening, Spock had turned out a beautiful meal, albeit of the plant-based variety.

“I’m sorry I ever doubted you, Spock,” Kirk said after his third helping, his smile sated. “I’ll never do it again. Promise.”

“Well,” McCoy said, “I probably will. But you’re a damn good cook.”

Spock gave him a lingering glimpse of that not-smile. “Thank you, Leonard.”

After dinner, they went for a walk at Kirk’s insistence, circling out from the house and moving into the low fields of blue flowers that spread from the edge of the trees. The farther they moved from the cabin, the more uneven the ground got, the dirt formed into unexpected dips and eddies that reminded McCoy of the sea. It tripped him up more than once, Kirk, too, but Spock sailed right over the surface as if he was walking on air.

“Gods, it’s gorgeous, isn’t it,” Jim said, when they came to rest at the top of a rise, the world stretching before them as if it were something new, a place made just for them. “It’s been too long since I’ve been out here. I’d forgotten.”

In the evening light, Kirk looked like a new man. It was more than just the civvie clothes, the faded plaid shirt and jeans, more than just the change of scenery: he looked like himself again, like the kid McCoy had fallen for at the Academy, all those goddamn years ago. He didn’t look like a captain anymore, was the thing. He looked like Jim Kirk.

And it was only then, in its absence, that McCoy could see just how heavily the gold braid had come to weigh on him, how much of it Jim carried every day in his shoulders, in the curve of his back, in the warm blue well of his eyes. It hadn’t happened all at once, had it; no, the changes in his body, in his face had been gradual, a steady creep of stress that Kirk could never quite shake and now, four years in the center seat, two and half in uncharted space, had hardened that burden to a fine, weathered shell, one McCoy knew so well he’d hardly noticed until now, until Jim was standing hip deep in blossoms on a world of his own choosing, staring two weeks of no Starfleet in the face.

“Captain,” Spock said, “the weather appears to be changing. Perhaps we should commence our return journey.”

Kirk turned to him, chuckling. “Nobody’s giving orders, remember? Call me Jim.”

A breeze kicked up and sent the petals at their feet dancing, a mad, happy wave. “Jim,” Spock said, an edge in his voice now, “a storm is rapidly approaching us from the south. We should return to the cabin now.”

McCoy squinted into the distance, into the folds of the sand-colored sky. “What? It’s clear as a bell out there, Spock. You’re seeing things.”

“I am not--”

Jim held up his hands and turned away from the horizon with a sigh. “Fellas, enough.” He scooted back down the rise, gestured at them to follow. “There’s a bottle in my bunk that’s calling our name, anyhow. Let’s head back.”

He gave Leonard a look and it hit McCoy like a thunderbolt: _Jim’s gonna do it tonight, isn’t he?_ he thought. _Shit. Oh shit._

His stomach flipped with fear, with anticipation, and he found himself watching Spock as they walked, wondering: Does he know? Does he have any earthly idea? Can he?

What the hell are we gonna do if he says no?

The notion made him shiver--or maybe it was the wind, sudden cold and sharp at his back--and he stopped lollygagging and scooted to catch up with Kirk.

They’d made it not ten minutes before the clouds closed and the rain hit, great gobs of it overtaking them and turning the soft dirt into muck. Leonard cussed and Spock remained nonplussed and Kirk laughed, threw his head back and his arms wide, stomped his feet in a weird little dance.

“Gods, it’s gorgeous, isn’t it?” he shouted over the thunder, over the steady pound of the rain.

He danced ahead of them, splashing through the mud like an overgrown kid, and even through the damp, McCoy could see it: the bare naked affection on Spock’s face as his eyes tracked Kirk’s every move. It’d taken Leonard a couple of years to get it, what that look meant, why Spock didn’t give it to anybody but Jim. It wasn’t much, just a curve of the mouth, a lift at the corner of Spock’s eyes, but it was there, plain as day, for anybody who knew how to look.

The ground grew slick, the grass weighted down with water, and still Jim skirted ahead, tripping over rocks and ridges and not slowing down a bit.

“Damn it, Jim!” McCoy barked, Spock hot on his heels. “Slow the hell down.”

Kirk skidded to a halt and turned, his face wet and jubilant. “Aw, come on, Bones! I know you’re not that out of shape.”

“It’s not my shape I’m worried about, idiot, it’s--”

His words broke, snapped clean in two, because one moment, Jim was ten feet away, grinning; the next, he was fucking gone.

McCoy got a flash of him falling, the split second where Jim hung in the air, the sound of Spock’s voice, fierce among the thunder, shouting, and he took off, sprinting for the spot. But a strong arm locked around his waist and pulled him flush just as the edge of the ground fell away, down into a ragged gulley where Jim’s body lay silent, not moving.

“Shit,” McCoy spat, flailing, “goddamn it, Spock, let me go!”

Spock ignored him, towed him back across the grass and dumped him into battered flowers. “Be still,” Spock said, “and wait here. I will retrieve the captain.”

“The hell you will. What if he’s busted something? You can’t move him. I won’t let you.”

Spock stared down at him, dignified despite the rain, despite the water pouring over his shoulders, down his face. “Very well,” he said. “We shall retrieve him together.”

Gingerly, they edged their way down into the gully. No wonder Jim had fallen, McCoy thought; the damn thing was almost invisible until you were right up on it, the edges softened by flowers and knee-high grass. The dip wasn’t deep but the walls were steep and studded with rocks, and when Spock made it down first and offered his hand, Leonard didn’t hesitate to take it.

Jim was unconscious, McCoy could see that just by looking. Kirk’s body was the wrong kind of askew, water pooling around him and mud soaking into his clothes. Leonard didn’t have his scanner--why the hell would you need one on an after-dinner stroll?--so he relied on his hands, on the knowledge he carried in the tips of his fingers: what fractured ribs felt like, or broken bones. Which cuts would heal and which would take the life right out of a man, if you let them.

“Yeah,” he said, finally, smoothing Kirk’s hair from his forehead, away from the wicked bruise on his temple. “It’s ok. We can move him.”

Spock knelt beside McCoy in the mud and slid his arms under Kirk’s body, picked him up as if he were made of straw. Together, they eased him up and out of the gulley and moved as fast they dared through the rain, back towards the cabin.

Kirk’s arms hung limp the whole way, made no attempt to hang on to Spock. That scared Leonard worse than anything, that kind of unwilling surrender.

Inside, they stripped him and McCoy battled him into dry clothes while Spock dragged out the cot and set it in front of the fire, lifted Kirk from Leonard’s hands and settled him into the sheets. Jim wouldn’t stop shaking, which in a way was a good thing--it meant his autonomic functions were strong, his basic systems still firing--but it was also damn hard to watch.

McCoy retrieved his medkit and dragged the blankets off his bed, carried the whole mess back into the living room. “Blankets,” he snapped at Spock. “Go get every damn one you can find.”

The scanners confirmed what he’d thought--nothing major broken, some pretty good gashes, a few busted ribs--but showed him something new: a tiny torn artery inside Kirk’s brain. There wasn’t much bleeding, so far as he could tell, no pooling within the cranial cavity; just an interruption in the blood flow carrying oxygen around the captain’s frontal lobes.

He dug around in his kit, cursing; he’d only brought basic tools with him because fuck, they were supposed to be on shore leave. Yeah, right. He dug up a simple arterial knitter and carefully laid it across the bruise on Jim’s temple. The thing was meant for repairing major tears like a rip in the jugular, a nick in the femoral; it was kind of like hunting a flea with a flyswatter, but hell. Hell. It was the best he could do.

The knitter hummed to life and added its voice to the other tools that dotted the captain’s body, a symphony of healing that said all they could do now was shut up and wait.

One by one, the machines finished their work, filled the room with their satisfied beeping, and Leonard lifted each one away. Finally, even the knitter was done, returned to the depths of his kit, but still, Jim didn’t stir, not even a twitch. His breathing was steady, his pulse regular, but he showed no signs of consciousness.

McCoy swallowed his alarm and leaned over the cot, waving his scanner back and forth over the still form again and again and thought: at least Jim had stopped shaking.

But Leonard hadn’t.

He didn’t realize how bad it was until he felt Spock’s hands on his shoulders, felt himself being pressed into the wooden chair that Spock had retrieved from the garden and placed for him next to the bed.

“Doctor,” Spock said softly. 

It was only then that McCoy realized that the sky outside had begun to lighten, that the whole of the night had passed as he leaned over the love of his life, willing him to heal, to wake up, to return.

“He’s still unconscious,” he said, his voice crowded with tears. “He shouldn’t still be unconscious, Spock. He should’ve woken up by now, opened his eyes at least. I don’t understand it.”

Spock’s hand found his shoulder again and squeezed, a straight-up human gesture that would’ve made McCoy laugh in other circumstances. But then, he thought, scrubbing the water and exhaustion from his eyes, in other circumstances, Spock never would’ve done it.

“Rest,” Spock said. “Close your eyes for a few moments, Leonard. I will wake you if you are needed.” His voice was low and steady, a warm bath that seeped into Leonard’s bones, and McCoy couldn’t help but obey the gentle, insistent command.

“Rest,” Spock said again, and for a moment, the thin one between the sunrise and sleep, McCoy thought he heard Spock’s voice inside of his head, too, felt a brush of fingers over his thoughts, and another gentle squeeze:

 _Leonard_ , the voice said. _I am here. Sleep now. You are of no use to him exhausted._

 

*****

 

When he opened his eyes again, the room was filled with light and his hand was folded around Jim’s, his thumb tracing Jim’s pulse. He sat up, half-expecting to see Kirk looking up at him, his expression exasperated and fond, maybe a little bitchy at being down for the count, but--

But the captain’s eyes were still closed, his face a pale blank, and Spock didn’t look much better.

“The emergency comm is not working,” he said without preamble, moving away from the window and back to McCoy’s side. “I have attempted to repair it without success.”

“Oh,” McCoy said.

Spock looked uncertain. “It is no comment on your talents, doctor, I merely surmised that additional medical support would be--”

Leonard waved him off. “Of course, Spock. Of course. But it’s not--?”

“It is not functioning. I do not think it has been tended to in many years.”

McCoy spread his fingers, clutched a little tighter at Jim’s. “And you haven’t seen so much as a twitch, huh? Not a peep?”

“No,” Spock said. “He has given no outward sign of awareness, much less consciousness.”

Leonard did his best to ignore the rise of fear in his gut, the deep, awful certainty that this time, the universe was not gonna be on their side. “Well. One of us could go for help, walk out to the nearest outpost, you know. Go bang on some neighbor’s door.”

“Doctor, the nearest neighbor, as you put it, is located some 250 kilometers away. At an average walking speed of 8.2 kilometers per hour, it would take me approximately 30.48 hours to--”

“We can’t just sit here!”

Something fluttered over Spock’s face. “The pilot is scheduled to return within the next 36 hours. If we can keep the captain’s status nominal until then, we should be able to--”

McCoy dropped Kirk’s hand and stood up, abrupt. “ _Nominal_? Are you even hearing yourself right now, Spock? Jim’s not a goddamn piece of equipment!”

“Doctor, I--”

“He’s a man, damn it, he’s your _friend,_ and you wanna lecture me about him being fucking nominal?”

“Leonard,” Spock said. “Please, you do not--”

McCoy got in his face, backed him up, pinned him to the wall with a glare. “No, you do not, Spock. You don’t understand. I’ve done all I can. If we were on the _Enterprise_ , oh sure, I could tell you what was wrong. Better yet, I could fix it! But instead, we’re stuck out here in this godforsaken place with no equipment, no technology, no chance for me to fix him, and you expect me to just sit here and wait?”

“No,” Spock said. “I do not. There may be another way.”

And that was how Leonard McCoy came to find himself seated before a fire on Evaline IX, witness to a ritual older than the tides, one he didn’t understand, one on which he hung all his hopes.

Spock flexed his hands, the skin and muscle beneath stretching, reaching, like they were searching for patterns or familiar rhythms in the air. He sat in McCoy’s chair, his back towards the hearth, his face shadowed by the sun drifting in from outside, oblivious to the tension within. “I will touch the captain’s face,” Spock said, his voice soft, almost melodic, “specifically, his psi points, and in that moment, his thoughts and my thoughts will join. If all goes well, I should be able to gain some insight into his current state and determine how we might most effectively aid him.”

“All right,” McCoy said, because they both knew it wasn’t.

Spock met his eye and Leonard could have sworn that the Vulcan’s had changed color, had moved from their familiar brown to a soft, almost iridescent black. “Wait here for us, Leonard,” he said, his hand moving towards Jim’s face deliberate, drifting. “Wait for us here.”

“Easy for you to say,” McCoy said, brittle and terrified, but Spock was already gone.


	2. Chapter 2

_Your name_ , Spock says in his captain’s mind, is _James Kirk._

There’s a fog around him, a white web that his thoughts want to stick to, and yet they cannot, slide instead like water from a blade of grass. Jim is here, somewhere, he must be, but all Spock can sense is this web, this porous no-space that is keeping him from Jim-- ah. He can feel it now--this web is keeping Jim from the pain that consciousness will bring, his mind protecting itself the only way it knows how.

 _It will hurt,_ Spock says _, yes, Jim, I know, but only for a short time. McCoy is here with me, waiting for you,  
__when you come back to your body, but to reach him, you must come to me, come with me. Do you understand?_

He waits. Hold his mind still and he waits.

There is nothing, no sound. No spark of a thought. A quiet so complete it unsettles him.

He had hoped to avoid traveling beyond the top layer of the captain’s mind--it would be an invasion to look beyond that, surely--but he can see now that he had been far too optimistic.

 _Trauma_ , the doctor had said, _disruption, an artery torn,_ but Spock had not let the meaning of those words truly sink in, nor the implications that such a wound might have for the captain’s extraordinary mind, for Spock had wanted to build the meld with hope, with the expectation that Jim would be there to meet him, that Spock would be able to find him.

But now, faced with this resistance, he must embrace fear. He must move beyond.

He gathers himself again and presses harder now against the web, more insistent, and it as if he has plunged into thick, sucking mud; the more he reaches for any sign of the captain, the slower his own thoughts become.

He stills himself. Wills his body to breathe. And he waits.

There is no one moment when he enters Kirk’s mind, leave the autonomy of his own behind. Instead, it is like walking from a bright room into one that is pitch: in one breath, all is darkness; in the next, he can sense shape, movement. Images that are faint, impressions of emotion, faded, for what surrounds him are only echoes of James Kirk.

_The rasp of stubble when Bones kisses him. A rain-soaked field cast in gray and splattered red. A familiar shadow at his shoulder, keeping watch._

There is no life to these impressions, no brightness that speak of _Jim_. Only afterimages of what matters to him, what is important to him.

And another--

 _He’s looking up and the sun is blinding. He can cry when the sun is so bright because he can pretend that’s why his eyes are watering. She won’t know any different. Won’t ask. She gives him a smile, tousles his hair._ “ _Be good for Frank, Jimmy,”_ _and he doesn’t trust himself to open his mouth. He’ll beg her to stay if he does._

There is a flare of pain in the shadows with him, something sharp and unhappy. Spock resists the urge to reach for it, to pull it close. He speaks to it instead, a whisper:

 _Your name is James Kirk_.

The flicker stirs, an answer comes: **_My name is_** \--?

The shadows shift, an echo of light, and weak tendrils of the captain’s thoughts find Spock’s, brush against him, uncertain.

            **_My name is_ \--**

He lets Kirk surround him, lets the wavering light lead the way through the darkness, and together, they are lost, seeking blind at the soft edges of Kirk’s consciousness, looking for--

**_For?_ **

Dark skies, he remembers. Flowers at his feet, the joy of the wind and the water around him, of his friends close behind, of this place. This beautiful place. But then he is falling, his flesh is tearing pouring his blood into the air, yes, as he tumbles down the rocks, falls into the ground of— 

Of? Where is he? He should know this.

Kirk’s thought is a roar: **_Should know this. Why don’t I know?_**

Spock does not answer, only follows, and they sink into darkness, one that feels different than before. Not cold and frightening, but warm, a deep sense of comfort. It is a bed, Spock realizes, a bed that Kirk is burrowed into, a bed with black sheets in a golden room. 

            _Is Bones here? He should be. Always wanted to bring him here. His mouth on the_  
            _back of my neck, the scratch of his beard as he laughs at me, pulls me close, tugs_  
_the blanket up over our shoulders._

A burst of confusion

**_Where is he? Where_ **

and Kirk surges through the sheets, searching, tugging Spock’s mind in his wake, dreamy slow, and Spock is overcome by the urge to stay, to give into the sweet torpidity of the captain’s thoughts and linger with him here, beyond the reach of the world, but

But

But if they do, Kirk may never awaken, and Spock

            _I am Spock_

knows better, knows that there is someplace else they must be. The cabin. The cot. The doctor, waiting anxiously beside.

             _Jim, come with me. We must leave this place.  
_

The captain pivots, as if suddenly aware of Spock’s presence, and for a brief moment, Spock sees himself as Kirk does now: a red wing that splinters the dark, breaks the bed, and as it cracks, Kirk reaches for him, blind, grasping, asking--

            **_Len?_**

Jim needs an anchor, Spock thinks, something more solid, more real, so he reaches deeper into the captain’s thoughts, winds his hands through a memory and draws it out, a needle from flesh.

            _Look, James. Look here._

In the memory, Leonard was sleeping and Jim was watching. His eyes ached and his body was sore, the kind of sore that comes from fighting dead to rights. Bones’ hands still had blood on them, a green tint to the nails that made his stomach turn. He wanted to wash it away. But Bones slept, the way he always does after a disaster—the sleep of the dead. Jim touched his hair, ran his fingers through it, and let himself breathe a soft _thank you_ into McCoy’s shoulder. It earned him a grumble, a mutter: “Go to sleep, kid.”

He smiled as a strong arm pulled him flush, another worming under his pillow, so that Jim’s head rested in the crook of Bones arm. The tension slid free from his body, and he went lax, loose, happy—

Kirk’s thoughts sharpen and he pushes back against Spock, slices the memory in two.

**_No, not. You’re not Len, you’re_ **

In the meld, there is a dim rumble of red thunder, fierce and steady and familiar. Flickers of something that feels—what?

Familiar. Familiar.

Yes.

 ** _Should know this_** , Kirk’s thoughts bellow. ** _Should know who you are, who I am who_**

Spock can feel his frustration, his fear, and he stretches his mind around the captain’s, tries to ease them out of this place, extract them again from the storm.  
  
            _Jim, come with me. Your name is Jim._

            **_I am?_**

_You are Jim_

            _ **Jim**_

For one brief moment, there is clarity, there is his captain before him, around him, battered and confused but whole, and in the next there is a screech of light and the meld is flooded with white, hot shards that wash away everything but the _pain_ , an eclipse of horror and shock and noise, and Kirk’s thoughts ring with it, that sound again: his flesh tearing, his blood screaming into the dirt 

**_Where am I? Who_ **

and everything falls away, obliterated, and Spock

He is Spock, only Spock, and he must pull away, must flee, must not become stuck, mired in thoughts that are not his  
  
in pain that is not

            _Jim_ , his mind cries, sending the sound into the web, watching it shatter.

No, he is Spock, he is not

_Jim_

One more breath a thousand a hand on his shoulder that brings him back to himself, to his body

            _Bones_ , Spock thinks. _Bones_.

He reaches for the doctor, he rises; at last, he rips himself free.


	3. Chapter 3

Spock’s whole body jerked, something like fear crossing his face, and he breathed Jim’s name.

McCoy startled. “Spock?” he said, reaching across the sheets, across Kirk’s silent body. “What’s wrong?”

Spock’s eyelids fluttered, his mouth going stone, and if it were any other being, any other place, McCoy would sworn the man was on the verge of a seizure.

“Spock!” he said again, louder. “What’s--?”

The Vulcan's face was contorted with pain, with great waves of emotion, and that was almost as terrifying as Jim being still.

“C’mon,” Leonard said, and he didn’t know who he was talking to. Who he was begging to come back. Maybe it didn’t matter. “Come on,” he said again. “Come on, darlin.’ Come back to me.”

“Doctor.”

Spock was staring at him, his fingers still pressed to Jim’s face, and McCoy allowed himself a single dizzying surge of hope.

And then he looked at Spock, really looked, and the despair and guilt in the Vulcan’s gaze was inescapable.

“It didn’t work, did it,” McCoy said, his voice flat.

“No,” Spock said. “It did not.”

McCoy sat back, passed a hand over his eyes. “Oh, gods.”

Spock’s voice was ragged. “The captain has retreated,” he said. “The pain--there is too much pain for him to reckon with. At least, this is what his mind has decided, I--”

He moved his hand from Jim’s face, finally, with a reluctance that made something in McCoy twist.  “Jim is lost, doctor, a prisoner of his own pain. He needs something, some reason, to allow himself to be lured back into the light. He needs--” Spock hesitated, and his eyes were flame bright, burning into Leonard’s own. “He needs more than I can offer.”

“I don’t understand.”

Spock did that thing with his eyebrows, frowning without changing expression, and then, slowly: “The captain needs you.”

“I’ve done all I can, Spock, I told you--!”

Spock paid him no mind. Simply stood, slipped around the bed and folded himself onto the floor next to McCoy.

“Leonard,” Spock said, his voice distant, melodic. “Listen to me. My presence alone in the meld was not enough. So, I propose this: we will meld, you and I, and find some solid ground between us. Once our link is strong, we will touch the Captain’s mind, together, and see if we might lead him out of the shadows in which he is now trapped.”

McCoy shot a hand through his hair. God, he felt like shit. He was still wearing yesterday’s plaid and every part of him ached, tension coiled up in his muscles like a sullen snake. And now this, fear, a deep sense of disquiet he did his best to hide behind bluster. “A mind meld, huh?” he said. “You sure you wanna jump into my head, Spock? Calling it messy would be kind. More like a goddamn tornado alley."

Spock met his eyes and gods, the Vulcan looked terrible, the stress of the last hours sunk into every pore. Lord only knew what horrors he’d seen in Jim’s head, how much it had taken out of him to get so close and yet be unable to bring Kirk back. He looked dazed, bewildered, shaken, a slim, awful mirror of what McCoy was feeling.

“I would expect nothing less from your thoughts, doctor. Any sense of order would have seemed out of character indeed.”

In another time or place, it might’ve been an insult, a gauntlet thrown in their latest battle of wits. Now, though, it felt like reassurance, and for the first time in hours, Leonard felt it, a shiver of silver: hope. And yet: “I don’t know if I can do this,” he said, the words tumbling out in a rush. “I want to, I do, it’s just--”

“You are the captain’s oldest friend. He knows you. He trusts you.”

“He trusts you, too.”

Something rippled across Spock’s face, fleeting.  “He has come to, yes. But not in the same way.” He flexed his hand, the same way he had before, except this time, it was lifting towards McCoy’s face. “Come,” Spock said. “We should begin.”

McCoy cleared his throat. “What, uh, what am I supposed to do in this meld thing, huh? I’ve never--I don’t know what you want me to do.”

“What you always do, Doctor,” Spock said gently. “Give the Captain something to hold on to.”

Leonard blinked, his eyes all at once heavy. “What if this doesn’t work?”

Spock was staring at him, still, his eyes dark, his mouth trembling. “It will work,” he said, with a fierceness that belied the tension in his face, the fear. “It will.” He raised his hand slowly, as if McCoy was a cat that might startle, and Leonard nodded, tilted his face towards the touch. “We will succeed, because we must.”

“Yes,” McCoy whispered, sinking under the firm, hot weights of Spock’s fingers, falling into the riptide of his eyes. “Damn it, we’ve got to. 

“Open your mind to me,” Spock murmured. “Open yourself to me, Leonard.”

  
*****

  
A brush of something over his thoughts, a breeze, like the first touch of spring. 

 _Doctor McCoy_ , he hears, he feels inside his head. _Let me in._

In one breath, McCoy is of his own body and mind. The floor of the cabin. The cut of the bedframe into his back. The smell of the fire, dying.

In the next, he is

He is

He is lightning in the desert, a bolt, not a body, his thoughts a torrent of heat, electricity, light

 **What is me what I not me who am I**  

_Leonard, Leonard, it is_

He can feel in a hundred different directions, images of  
  
            of him of Jim  
  
            of his ex-wife his sister his mother’s house on the water  
  
            the walls of their apartment in San Francisco  
  
            a flash of his father’s rage the taste of bourbon the smell of the street  
  
            at four o’clock in the morning his body beaten down by rounds  
  
            exhausted from hours knee deep in someone else’s pain  
  
            a tremor in his gut a candle because at home there was Jim  
  
            asleep in their bed asleep he’s just

            _Doctor, wait, you are--_

**I have to be quiet. He’s got a practical exam today; I can’t wake him. He needs his sleep. But I want him to**

Leonard swallows an awful gut punch of fear and he sees his hands on Jim’s shoulders, shaking, even as he feels, he knows this is not the Jim who should be here, dreaming in their long-ago bed, because this one is older, his face is bruised, his civvie shirt is torn, and he smells of blood

            _Look at me_.

**Wake up, damn it! Why won’t he—honey, you can’t do this, you can’t, I need you, I need**

A hand on his shoulder, hard. 

            _McCoy. Look at me._

**Look?**

He turns, lifts his eyes, and Spock is there, standing in a room the man’s never been in, that he can’t be in, can he?

_No. We are in your mind, Leonard. Can you see that?_

Spock reaches out, runs his fingers through the window, the wall, and they dissolve in his hand, running like watercolors.

_None of this is real._

A rush of certainty.

**It used to be.**

_It once was, yes. But this is a memory, an imagining. Your mind is making sense of the meld._

**The meld**

Fear again, a flame that Spock cups, snuffs out in his fist.

            _The meld is within my control. I will allow no harm to come to you_.

His hand on McCoy’s arm, certain, as it never would be in real life.

            _Your thoughts are your own, Leonard. Do you see that? Let us explore them, together_.

Spock pauses for a moment, waiting patiently--

**Ah, you’re waiting for me, huh?**

_Yes._

\--and then McCoy takes a step, then another, and San Francisco is gone. They’re on the beach, the marshy sands off the Gullah Islands, not far from Old Charleston.

**My mother’s house. My mother lives here.**

_It pleases you, this place? You enjoyed being here?_

**I did, as a kid. Yeah.**

The waves are playing tag on the shore, rocks and silt bleeding into the sand. Leonard’s feet are wet, sunk into the shoreline, sinking. Above them, the sun’s cracked a window in the wall of clouds up ahead, shoved the night’s storms aside to make room for the day.

**Used to come out here when things with my dad went bad. I’d show up on her doorstep without calling, snot-nosed and feeling sorry for myself, and she’d let me in, day or night. She was always happy to see me.**

            _That surprised you_.

**Yeah. Every time.**

_She is your mother. Why would she not wish to see you?_

McCoy turns away from the question and leads Spock from the water, towards a large rock set beside a driftwood fence. They settle on the stone, facing the sea. McCoy’s dirty civvies are gone, he realizes, replaced by a faded pair of trunks he lost, oh gods, years ago, when Jo was still a baby. His chest is bare, blown hot by the sun.

And Spock is—Spock. Blue tunic and neat trousers. Ready for duty, always. It makes McCoy laugh.

            _What do you find so humorous?_

**The idea of you here, in the low country, dressed like you’re about to step on the bridge.**

_Ah. The incongruity amuses you._

There is something about his answer--it feels like warm satisfaction, as if Spock is pleased to have understood McCoy’s feeling.

**It does.**

There’s a long moment of quiet, the sluggish waves the only sound, the cry of the gulls overhead.

**What the hell are we doing here, Spock?**

            _This is your mind, Leonard. I might ask you the same question._

**No, I mean, we’re melded, right?**

_…we are._

**So, ok, aren’t we supposed to be _doing_ something? Pretty sure we’re not gonna drag Jim out of his own head by sittin’ here all day and slapping mosquitoes.**

_If what little I was able to see in Jim’s mind is any indication, it will require a great mental effort to drag him out beyond the pain. He is protecting himself, doctor, shielding himself from the hurt. As you yourself said, injury of the kind that Jim has suffered can be intensely traumatic._

McCoy sighs, pitched back on his hands.

**You went a long way not to answer my question.**

            _Our bond must be strong before we attempt to contact the captain. You have never_   _melded before; I have done so infrequently over the past several years._

**I’m a rookie and you’re out of practice, is that it?**

            _Essentially, yes. If the meld between us is weak, then when we reach out for the captain, it will break, rendering us unable to come to his aid and possibly in danger ourselves. Thus, we must ensure that our minds are truly one._

McCoy feels a rush of love, furious, that winds itself around his thoughts like ivy, like Jim’s arms around his neck, catching, holding.

**We can’t lose him.**

_No. We cannot._

Suddenly, McCoy hears Jim’s voice, an echo from the water: “Bones, jesus. Don’t leave. Look, I’m sorry, damn it. I shouldn’t have—“

**Spock, did you--?**

            _Yes. It is another memory, doctor. If you are comfortable doing so, then let it come._

The feel of his boots on the deck, pounding. Jim’s face in his hands, the skin like hot coals.

“You’re right! You’re goddamn right you shouldn’t have!”

“I wasn’t thinking,” Kirk said. “I didn’t—“

McCoy's acutely aware Spock beside him on the rock, gazing with him into Jim’s face, and gods, it's strange, sharing this, looking twice with one set of eyes, feeling the fury of his affection for Kirk even as he wants to punch him for being such a goddamn fool and knowing that Spock can feel it too, and the moment the thought blooms in his mind, Spock edges away, his discomfort spreading like a bruise. 

            _Doctor, we need not linger if you do not wish to--_

For a moment, the scene fades, Jim’s face going ghost in his hands.

It would be easy to look away, to keep this from Spock, what there is between he and Jim. But this is his head and anywhere he turns, he knows it, Jim will be there. Been true for a long, long time.

**No, it’s alright. Just not used to other people seeing the mess, you know? Usually I pick up for guests.**

Spock turns his head, a hint of amusement in his eyes.

            _I will keep that in mind._

Jim’s face again, his cabin. The always already hum of the engines. The sound of Jim’s breath, exhausted.

“You could’ve been killed,” McCoy said, hears himself say. “You get that, right? Another two minutes with that thing, and you’d be on a fucking slab right now.”

Jim’s arms around his ribs. His face against McCoy’s chest. “I know. Gods, I know.”

McCoy wanted to shake him, wanted to kiss him, wanted to lock him in a closet and never let him out again, never let him throw himself at the unknown like it’s nothing, like he’s indestructible, like he doesn’t care if he comes home alive.

“You could’ve been killed,” he says again. Softer now. “That’s all I’m saying.”

Jim’s breath on his cheek. The feel of his body, trembling, still overdosed on adrenaline, still ripe with fear. “I’m sorry I scared you.” He tilted his head, found McCoy’s mouth. His first kiss was sweet and long, the second longer, more desperate, and McCoy leaned back, let the kid do what he wanted to, what he needed.

“Sorry,” Jim murmured, sliding the sound over McCoy’s chin, his teeth. “Fuck, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s alright,” McCoy said. “It’s alright.”

“It isn’t. It’s not.”  His hands found Leonard’s chest, shoved him towards the bed. “Not ok, it’s not! Don’t make excuses for me, Len, don’t you do that.”

Leonard fell into the sheets and Jim was on top of him, over him, straddling his hips. His face was flushed, his eyes far, far too bright as he pulled off what was left of his tunic.

**He’s so beautiful. Even like this. Skin broken and covered in bruises**

There were too many for McCoy’s palms to cover, they were, angry ladders of purple and red.

In the meld, he can feel Spock’s shock, a surge of anger, barely controlled--not at him, or at Jim, but at the thing that has done this, has _hurt_ him.

In the bed, he lifted his head, arched his neck. “Jim,” he said. “Come here, honey.”

Kirk sighed, caught his fingers on the edge of McCoy’s trousers and opened them. “No,” he said, ducking his head. “I wanna show you. Let me show you how how sorry I am.”

**Oh gods**

He’d forgotten this, how this ended

**No**

how Kirk had sucked him ready and then stretched out on his belly and begged, begged McCoy to--

**No, _no_ , damn it, that’s not--**

Leonard wrenches away from the memory, yanks Spock with him, and Jim’s image fades, the feel of his hands. McCoy’s own thoughts, slipping through his fingers like glass. A plea:

**That’s ours, Spock.**

The soft press of Spock’s mind around his, a nudge, and they are on the shore again, alone.

            _I know this is not easy for you. Sharing your thoughts with me._

Leonard sends his eyes out over the water, into the sky.

**My thoughts about Jim, you mean.**

            _Yes. Given the circumstances, it is understandable that he would dominate your thoughts. You were--very prominent within his._

**You being polite about this is just making it worse, Spock.**

_I am not ‘being polite,’ I assure you. I am merely observing that your reactions are wholly_ _logical._

It’s a gift, a small gesture, a sweep of levity much needed.

**Logical? Now I know you’re full of it.**

They lean back on the rock, the stone smooth under their palms, and watch the sun wrestle with thunderheads.

            _If it is any comfort, the nature of your relationship with the captain is not a surprise to me._

 **Oh. Well, I suppose I’d be worried if it was. Four years** **is a long time to be blind, Spock. And neither Jim or me is that good a liar. All right. Maybe Jim is, when he wants to be, when he really puts his mind to it.**

Spock shakes his head, his bangs blowing in the wind.

_Indeed. I have been aware of it for some time._

Something about the way he says it--thinks it?--gets McCoy’s dander up, makes him swivel and break out his best frown. Are all Vulcans this goddamn smug?

**Oh, have you now?**

_Yes._

**I mean, it’s not like we were keeping it a secret--it’s just not something we advertise.**

_You are not as subtle as you think, Doctor._

A whisper of uncertainty, a shy offer:    
      
_Shall I show you?_


	4. Chapter 4

A wave scurries up the sand, licks salt and silt at their feet. A stripe of sun slips through the clouds and stretches lazy over Leonard’s face.

**I’ve shown you mine, now you’ll show me yours, huh? Seems only fair.**

            _Something like that._

The beach turns, and there is McCoy at Kirk’s side, bent over the Captain’s chair. There is an  incongruity between the softness in his shoulders and the outrage in his voice: “Damn it, Jim, you can’t just _leave_ them there!”

Spock has always been fond of puzzles. There is a sense of satisfaction, even pride, in putting every bit of knowledge in its proper place and analyzing the final product.

This puzzle is no different. It takes time. It spools out like a thread.

Watching the captain and the doctor spar: that is one piece.

Kirk sighed, exasperated, weary, and for a moment Spock envied him, knew exactly how he felt, wished he had the luxury of expressing himself as such when it came to matters McCoy.

**Tell me how you really feel, Spock.**

_Hush, doctor._

“Bones,” the captain says, “I’m not leaving them. The _Yorktown_ ’s a week behind us. They’ll pick up the rest of the colonists and carry ‘em on to Starbase 14.”

McCoy’s face twisted. “Oh, sure. Just another week of exposure to Bertholt rays that will fucking roast their insides if they so much as get near a window.”

“You said yourself that the remnants of the spores would hang around in their systems for that long, at least.” The Captain looked up, gave McCoy a firm eye. “Are you rescinding that medical opinion, CMO? If so, I’d advise you to alter your log immediately and apprise Starfleet Command of your mistake.”

They stared at each other, long and steady. Then McCoy’s face shifted, his lips twitching into a smile. “Is that an order?”

Kirk grinned. “Oh, hey, was I using my Captain’s voice?”

McCoy held up his fingers. “Just a little fucking lot, yeah.”

“Well,” Kirk said. “I gotta practice on somebody.”

He leaned back and turned his head and only Spock could see it: the tender look he gave McCoy, the quick sweep of the doctor’s thumb over the back of Jim’s neck.

McCoy straightened up. Squeezed Kirk’s shoulder.

“Behave yourself, Captain, sir,” he said, _sotto voce_.

Kirk’s grin bordered on insouciant. “You know I always do, Doctor.”

McCoy snorted, shoved away from the center seat. “Like hell,” he said.

**You always watch Jim and me like a hawk, Spock?**

_I might ask you the same._

Another memory, the gym, now, where Kirk danced on the mat, ducking his way out of Spock’s grip, barely, the whisper of his tunic through Spock’s fingers. In the corner, there was sound of the treadmill, the weight of McCoy’s eyes on them, amused. Ostensibly, Spock was teaching the captain a new sparring technique, but Jim seemed determined to find an easy way out.

Kirk grinned, wiped the wet from his brow and shifted from one leg to the other. “I still think you should just teach me the pinchy thing. Be a hell of a lot easier.”

Spock settled his weight, leaned back on the balls of his feet. “Captain, the ‘pinchy’ thing requires not only physical prowess but a disciplined mental practice of--”

The captain’s smile kicked wider and for a moment, Spock was blinded by it, by the little boy glee and Kirk saw it, struck, his motions quick and smooth as he kicked hard at Spock’s side.

He got in one good blow in before Spock caught his ankle, blocked him easily and tossed the captain on his back.

He blinked, stunned, and then Jim laughed, pushed up from the mat as Spock leaned over him. “Hey, I’m getting better.”

“Better is a relative term, Captain.” Spock said, allowing his expression to edge toward smug.

“You’re getting plenty of practice landing on your back these days,” McCoy drawled, still steady on the treadmill, his pace, his eyes, unwavering.

Kirk’s smile turned, became something Spock could not quite define, something that reminded him of a hunting _le’matya._

“It’s a good skill to have, Bones,” Kirk said, in a voice did not match that predatory smile, a voice that made the doctor laugh. Between them, the air had pulled pleasant tense and Spock watched them, curious, tried to figure out why.

A rush of amusement, the sound of McCoy’s laughter.

**Serves him right. He should have his ass handed to him more often. Does him good.**

_But often, Doctor, it does not._

The gym is gone and in its place, the whine of the transporter, the walls of the Medbay appearing as the stark fields of Trigon VI fade.

**Oh gods.**

Spock was straddling the captain, a hand pushed into Kirk’s guts, pinching a spurting artery closed and keeping all the vital organs where they belonged. McCoy stood over them, his eyes wide, a flicker of fear, before he started barking orders at his nurses, before he fell to his knees and held Spock’s hands in place as he felt for the captain’s injuries. “You ok?”

Spock nodded. “I am well. See to the captain, Doctor.”

“What the hell do you think I’m doing?” He nodded at M’Benga, who was crouching at Kirk’s head. “30 ccs of Resi now, another 30 in two minutes.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

The hiss of a hypospray, the sting of McCoy’s eyes on his face. “Keep holding him like that, Spock. Don’t you fucking move until I tell you, you got that?”

Spock nodded again and the doctor squeezed his elbow, a reassurance. For himself or for Spock, Spock was not certain.

He stayed there, on the floor, bent above Kirk’s body as McCoy and M’Benga rip and tear and repair. It seemed like a very long time, although he knew it could not have been.

“All right,” McCoy says, his voice cutting through the clatter. “Let’s get him up on the biobed now. Spock, you can let him go.”

The moment he moved, the captain was surrounded, a half dozen personnel crowding him, lifting him,

            _Saving him, as I could not._

and Spock was--superfluous.

He was uninjured and yet, for a moment, he ached with it, his inability to help, the unnecessary nature of his presence.

**Unnecessary?** The word is gentle, rich with conviction: **You brought him home, Spock. I couldn’t have helped him if you didn’t bring him back to me. He needed you, then. We both did.**

“Doctor,” Spock said, standing beside the bed, his hands black with his captain’s blood.

McCoy didn’t look up, his eyes fixed on the monitors. “Get out of here, Spock, and let us work. Go take care of his ship.”

There was no bite behind the words, somehow, and that more than anything chased Spock away.

The journey away from the planet, the details of his shift, were a blur; words spoken, orders given, fleet commanders appeased.

No, the next thing he knew was McCoy’s voice over the comm, the sense of the whole bridge listening, leaning in:

“Yeah, Spock, he’s all right. Well, he will be. We’ll have him strapped down in here for a few days until the sutures take, and he’ll be high as a kite for a while, but as soon as he’s conscious, you can see him.” A hesitation. “Because, uh, I imagine you’ll be needed his statement for your log or some such horseshit, right?”

Around him, the crew’s relief--Chekov’s smile, Sulu blowing out his breath, Uhura thanking her deities of choice--it was a tangible thing, and Spock felt some part of him ease, too.

“Indeed,” he said, heard himself say. “Thank you, doctor. Keep me informed.”

He could not wait, however. He did not.

His shift ended and he should have gone to his quarters. Should have been meditating, preparing his mind for rest, for the demands of his next turn on the bridge. Or perhaps in the astrophysics lab, if he required a distraction, overseeing the end of an experiment that had occupied his free time for months.

He should not have been hovering outside of Sickbay where his captain was resting, recovering, and most likely, unconscious.

Except.

Except his logic had always been...challenged where Jim Kirk is concerned, from the moment they met, and the time they have spent together had failed to alleviate it, the unerring way that Kirk could make things seem far more complicated than they should have been, could disrupt the binary of what was logical and what was not.

There is a stretch of understanding in the meld, an echo of acknowledgement.

**Nothing’s that simple with him, is it? I think he takes it as his personal mission to make other people’s lives as complicated as possible.**

            _In this, he is successful. As Starfleet would undoubtedly agree._

**Pfffft. That’s just business. Jim only really messes with people he likes.**

He was not sure when he stopped thinking of Kirk as “Captain,” as a officer with whom he served. When he began to think of him as a friend, as a man he was determined to protect. A mission that he could not easily dismiss, despite the doctor’s assurances.

He needed to see for himself.

Medbay was dark and quiet, the frenetic energy of the past hours bled away into the steady hum of machinery, the whispered hush of Gamma shift as they drifted between the few occupied beds.

They had cleaned the captain’s blood from the floor.

He was in the corner, tucked into a semi-private bay near McCoy’s office. The doctor always put him there when he was injured, when his wounds required more than a few hypos and a spread of dermaplast.

It had happened far too frequently, as of late.

As he approached, he heard Jim’s voice, unmistakable even now, then the low rumble of Doctor McCoy’s, and it settled something jagged and uncertain in his chest.

“A week,” McCoy was saying as Spock edged forward, remaining in the shadows just beyond the bay’s door. “Behave yourself and I won’t make it two.”

“Don’t wanna be in here a second longer than I have to.”

The doctor reached out, cradled Kirk’s jaw in his hand. Swept his thumb over Jim’s cheek. “Glad to hear it.”

With puzzles, there is always, at the heart, some question. A riddle to be answered, a picture to draw out, an equation to be solved. And until the last piece slots into place, there is only an incomplete picture, a knowledge that there is a gap. That something is missing.

And this--Kirk’s face soft, his eyes closed, leaning into McCoy’s touch with a small, heartbreaking smile--was the last piece.

It fell in line with every teasing grin, every sharply-phrased kindness, all the worry and warmth and friendship, companionship, he had always seen and envied between them. Every stolen glance, each quick retreat and flush--taken together, all of it was logical now, snapped into focus in Medbay, in the lean hours before dawn.

            _How did I not know this sooner? I should have seen--_

McCoy leaned down and Kirk arched up, the line of his throat smooth and bare and vulnerable as he took the kiss McCoy gave him, familiar and sweet.

“When are you gonna quit tryin’ to die on me? Hmmm?”

“Bones, I--”

“Shut up,” McCoy said, almost a whisper. “I know, honey. I know.”

He kissed Kirk again, not as gently as before, and the captain made a low, helpless sound, his fingers caught in McCoy’s hair and Spock--

**Spock.**

Left them there, undisturbed. Moved back through the shadows, through the sleeping ship, and found himself alone.

**How come you never said anything? Would’ve been nice to know that you knew.**

_Why would I have done so? It is a private matter between you, one that you have never raised with me._

**Well.**

_Thus, it seemed unnecessary, if not inappropriate, to mention it_.

They are on the beach again, watching the water move slow and thick through the underbrush as the sun trails its fingers down the edge of the shore.

            _It seemed, as you might say, none of my damn business, Doctor._

**It’s not, frankly. Or it wouldn’t be if you didn’t mean a lot to both of us.**

McCoy touches his arm, his fingers cool and blunt.

**You get that, right?**

His hand stretches, turns itself around Spock’s wrist, and there is a push of emotion between them that Spock cannot recognize, does not know.

            _I am not certain_.

Leonard sighs, the wind blowing his hair into his eyes.

**Do you know how this thing happened, between Jim and me?**

            _How could I?_

A smile, one that Spock can feel curl around his shoulders.

**Heh. You’re a Vulcan, not a Betazoid, is that it?**

            _Indeed_.

**Then lemme show you.**


	5. Chapter 5

A dorm room, theirs, his and Kirk’s. 

            _Ah. The Academy._

The Academy, that first year when everything was intimidating as hell, when McCoy had done his level best not to be scared out of his wits.

**I had ten years on everybody there, cold. Couldn’t let the kids see how out of my league I felt, most days.**

            _Except Jim_.

**Except him, yeah. He got it. He listened when I couldn’t hold it in, when I had to crack. And that’s what I thought it was at first, him acting like an inconsiderate jackass. Thought it was him dealing with the pressure of that place in his own, uh, particular way.**

He was keying in late, when he heard it, the split second before the doors parted: a revved-up sigh, the telltale smack of a kiss.

Leonard resisted the urge to pound his forehead into the bulkhead. _This bullshit again?_ he thought. _Seriously?! For gods’ sake._

It didn’t matter that it was almost midnight; it could’ve been straight after lunch, or the break of the fucking dawn. It didn’t matter a damn when McCoy got home, because when he did, smart money said that Jim would have some beautiful being in their room--in his lap, on his bed, once on McCoy’s desk, which was just rude. His tongue would be down their throat, their hands would be in his hair, and if it’d been anyone else pulling this shit, anybody but Jim, Leonard would have thrown things and hollered and demanded a new roommate, damn it, ASAP.

Except he adored the kid, for some reason, even when he caught him with his pants down.

And to be honest, there were worse sights to come home to than Jim Kirk breathless and flushed, his mouth wet from somebody else’s kisses as he sang the same apology for the nine hundredth fucking time: _I’m sorry, Bones. Won’t happen again, Bones._

It wasn’t just that he was pretty, though. Pretty McCoy could’ve set aside, compartmentalized into the hand-on-cock box and sealed the lid with no hesitation.

No, though. It was Jim.

His too-loud voice in the morning and his weird affection for classical music and his brain, gods, his beautiful corn-fed head that bubbled up stuff that Leonard had never considered, not to mention the way he swung his arm around McCoy’s shoulders, unabashed, affectionate, in the middle of the quad or in the mess hall or in a crowded ‘lift, if he wanted to, no second thought. There’d been more than one moment when it’d taken all McCoy had not to catch the kid around the waist and drive him into the nearest bulkhead and sink into that beautiful mouth, try to pull out the same sounds he’d accidentally overheard time and time again.

But he hadn’t. And he wouldn’t. It was enough to have Jim as a friend, as a cocky, everyday feature in this, the strange second act of his life.

            _Why did you not tell him of your feelings?_

**Why? Because it fucking scared me, that’s why--caring about him, like that. Hell, I’d only know him, what, six months? at that point. That ain’t my usual MO, Spock. I’m more of a slow and steady kind of guy, usually. Get to know somebody backwards and forwards before I can decide if I like ‘em or not, much less--**

In the meld, Spock can feel rumble through the doctor’s thoughts, can see it on McCoy’s face as he has a thousand times without really knowing what it was.

            _Love._

**Yeah. And I, well--I wasn’t ready to face the fallout if I’d said something and Jim had turned me down.**

Spock reaches out, brushes his fingers against McCoy’s, a long, slow stroke of understanding.

            _That is eminently understandable, Leonard_.

McCoy’s mouth turns, a smile that sinks into Spock like a stone.

**There you go being reasonable again, Spock. Careful. I'll start to expect it from you.**

In McCoy’s memory, Kirk stood sheepish before him, shirtless, his trousers open and a dark suck mark under his ear. He looks nothing like the man Spock knows now, the one he thinks of as a friend, no; the gloss of the imagined makes him shine. And yet the outlines of the captain are there, were there, even then; there is a self-assurance, a confidence in his body, his beauty, that Spock knows very well.

            _He knows exactly what he is doing_.

**Doesn’t he always, the sneaky little shit.**

Kirk’s hands were up, spread in conciliation. “I know,” he said, the green-eyed stranger having fled. “It’s on me, Bones. I’m an asshole.”

“What _is_ it with you? My god, man. Your dick’s not gonna fall off if you give it a rest day, you know.”

“I’m sorry. I thought you said you were on rotation tonight.”

“That’s tomorrow!” McCoy barked. “Jesus, Jim, I told you this morning, clear as goddamn day, that I’d be here tonight but gone tomorrow.”

“Oh,” Kirk said. He bit his lip and looked McCoy dead in the eye. “Huh. I must’ve misunderstood.”

McCoy may have been cross-eyed and exhausted and in desperate need of a shower, but fuck, a blindfolded Horta couldn’t have missed it, the dead-to-rights _want_ in the tricky sky of Jim’s eyes.

Which was just--

Oh.

Oh shit. 

Goddamn. He was an idiot.

            _An accurate assessment, in this case_.

**Shut up, Spock.**

McCoy peeled a hand over his face. “You didn’t misunderstand a damn thing, did you.”

A big, dickish grin. “Nope.”

“So, you wanted me to see you like, uh, like this.”

Kirk’s eyes darkened. “That’s part of it, yeah.”

“Oh? What’s the other part?”

Jim edged forward, his toes brushing McCoy’s boots. “I want you to do something about it for once, Len. What the hell do I have to do? Draw you a map?”

McCoy grinned, drew his knuckles over Kirk’s cheek. “I’m a doctor, not a mind reader.”

Kirk turned into it, the touch, rubbed his face against McCoy’s hand like a great, golden cat. “Fine. Let me spell it out in terms even you can understand: you should kiss me. Right the fuck now.”

“I should, huh?” Leonard said. He spread a hand over Kirk’s hip. “You’re a bossy little shit, you know that?”

Jim leaned into him, warm and certain. “Hey, I gotta practice on somebody.”

“Uh huh.” McCoy tipped his head, brushed Jim’s nose with his own. “Why can’t you just kiss me?”

A frustrated sigh. “I could,” Jim said, his voice falling, sweet timber. “But I want you to kiss me first.”

Leonard drew his fingers up Kirk’s side, over his chest, and cupped his jaw, held that lovely, frustrating face in his hands. “Hmmm. Maybe. Why don’t you ask me nicely?”

“N-nicely?”

McCoy chuckled. “Say please.”

“What?”

He leaned in and traced the edge of Jim’s lips with his tongue, slow, Kirk making hot, sweet sounds in its wake. “I said: Say. Please.”

“Please,” KIrk breathed. “Please kiss me, Len. Gods, I want you to--”

The feel of Jim’s mouth under his, open and impatient, the way his tongue met McCoy’s and welcomed him in, it was--

It is overwhelming for Spock, for it is not as it was before, when Leonard showed him what it was like to kiss Kirk when he was fearful and bruised. That had been a memory held at a distance, recollection traced through a scrim, but this, _this_ , McCoy’s memory of their first kiss, it is visceral, a hot, living thing that Spock cannot help but embrace.

It is unsettling, how good it feels.

McCoy stroked Kirk’s back, felt the plate of Jim’s shoulders shifting as he knotted his fists in McCoy’s jacket and leaned into him, his arousal pressed against McCoy’s stomach, and in the meld, Spock is overwhelmed by desire, McCoy’s, yes, but his own, too; a long shot of want that feeds something in him, something carefully concealed, even now, even with McCoy so close to it, so very close.

**Spock? What’s wrong?**

Kirk pitched his forehead against McCoy’s and they stood there for a moment, in the middle of their dorm room where nothing changed and everything had and gods, Leonard thought, he could get used to this, having Jim Kirk in his arms.

            _Nothing is amiss, Leonard._

Kirk toyed with the clasps of McCoy’s jacket, his expression suddenly shy. “This is ok, right? I mean, this isn’t gonna mess things up between us or anything, is it?”

“I have no idea. It might be great. Or we might fuck it up royally. Who knows?”

Jim snorted. “That’s what I love about you, Len. Your relentless optimism.”

McCoy grinned. “Hey, you asked.”

“Clearly that was my mistake.” He popped one clasp open, then two. “Why don’t you take this off so we can fuck it up royally in your bed.”

“My bed? What’s wrong with yours?”

“Nothing,” Kirk said. “I’d just rather be naked in yours.”

_I do not understand why._

He can feel McCoy struggling to look away from Jim’s face, the joy there an ardent flame.

**Why--why what?**

_Why have you attempted to conceal this from the crew, from others--the way in which  
            you and the captain feel about each other?_

**Huh. Well. I guess--I guess I wanted this to stay ours. Jim belongs to everybody and their brother out here, Spock, you know that. Every Vice Admiral with a stick up his ass can comm him whenever they feel like it and send him--send us all--into harm’s way. But he and I--**

Their apartment on Douglas Street, packed up and just about empty. The remains of the last three years stripped down to a few boxes and a six-pack of beer. 

**\--I wanted that to be ours alone. I liked having a few minutes here and there, an hour, when I could forget about that other shit and pretend that he was only mine.**

“I’m not saying we hide it,” McCoy said. “I’m just saying there might be certain advantages in not shouting it from the rooftops, is all.”

It was their first night back on Earth after Nero, when it was finally sinking in, amidst the familiar detritus of the last three years, that what had been a temporary emergency had kicked the rest of their lives into warp drive, that the _Enterprise_ would soon be their home.

Kirk looked up from the box he was sorting through. “Yeah? Such as?”

“Such as, keeping the big brass off your ass. Nogura might not be too keen on you fucking a member of your command staff.”

McCoy had wanted to chuck it all: sell the so-called furniture, recycle every last fucking PADD, give whatever was left over to the compost, but Jim had insisted on some deliberation. He’d lured McCoy with the promise of booze and one last fuck in the sonic, yet the beer sat unopened and nobody was naked and maybe there was more to it, what was left here, than McCoy had first thought.

Jim made a face. “First of all, fuck Nogura.”

“No, thank you.”

“And second”--he yanked at McCoy’s sleeve and dragged him down to the floor, to his side--”we won’t be breaking any rules, Bones. I checked.”

McCoy grumbled, folded his legs awkwardly beneath him. “You checked? You stuck your eyeballs on Starfleet regulations of your own free will?"  
  
“I know, I know,” Kirk said. “I was disappointed in me, too. Won’t happen again." 

McCoy slid his fingers through the kid’s hair and scratched gently at his scalp. Jim made a contented noise and nudged the box from his lap, leaned against Leonard’s side.

“It’s more than that though, isn’t it?” Jim said. “More than what the brass will think. You’re worried about the crew, aren’t you?”

Leonard kissed the top of his head. “What, you part psychic now?”

“No. I just know you.” Kirk got a fist in McCoy’s t-shirt. “You’re worried about me. You think it might undermine my authority or some shit, if everybody knew that I loved you.”

“Well, if anything, I think it’d win you admiration from most quarters because clearly, you’ve got excellent taste.”

Jim snorted. “Uh huh.”

“But look, some people are gonna be searching for any excuse to dismiss you, to write you off as some fresh-faced flash in the pan. You know that. You’re under scrutiny, kid, more than you ever have been. And you’re gonna be under a lot of pressure, too. You don’t need me or us or what have you adding to all of that.”

“Adding to it?” Jim said. “Hell, Bones, you’re the only person who’ll keep all that shit from eating me alive.” He sat back, stared McCoy in the eye. “Don’t you get that? Without you, there’s no fucking way I’m ready for this.”

“This?”

Kirk waved his hands around. “Space. Command. Being in charge of something bigger than myself, much less one that carries torpedoes. I don’t--I wouldn’t trust myself with any of it, Len, if you weren’t around, if I didn’t know you were there to keep me from doing something epically stupid.” He took a breath. “If I didn’t know that you loved me, I don’t know where I’d be. And I don’t give a damn who knows that, no matter how much braid they have on their sleeve.” 

The words hung there for a moment, lit up by the afternoon sunshine, and in that moment, space and all its angry trying-to-get-them-killed bullshit seemed really fucking far away.

“You,” McCoy said, rough, reaching, “come here.”

Jim tumbled into McCoy’s lap, his eyes iridescent, liked stained glass lit from within, and he sighed when Leonard kissed him, wholehearted and satisfied.

“I love you,” McCoy said, with a fierceness that only Kirk could tap into, that only he’d earned. “You’re an idiot and a menace and the most beautiful goddamn thing I’ve ever seen.”

A smile. “You’re damn right.”

“And if you want me to paint that on all those brand new white bulkheads on your pretty new ship, Captain, then I will.”

Kirk chuckled. “I don’t think that’ll be necessary.”

McCoy stroked his neck, felt the ripples run down Jim’s back. “But look, everybody’s getting their own quarters here, right? Not that I don’t love you, but those fuckers are tiny, and I have this funny feeling I’m gonna need my space.” He brushed his lips over Jim’s temple. “And so are you.”

“No, yeah, of course.” 

“Besides,” Leonard said. “I like the idea of having to sneak into your quarters at night. Creeping down the corridor in socked feet, and all that.”

Jim’s grin widened. “Is that so?”

McCoy licked at his throat and bit at the soft spot under Jim’s ear. “Uh huh.”  

“Why?” Kirk said, his voice a whisper, like steam. “What’re you going to do when you catch me?”

They made love on the floor, stretched out the last of the linens, an afghan Jim’s grandfather had made him years before. He looked gorgeous against it, the warm blues and browns framing his face, his ridiculous, unwavering smile as he wrapped his legs around Leonard’s waist and leaned back, welcomed him in.

“Maybe you’re right,” he said, later. “Maybe we shouldn’t make a big thing about it.” He traced the lines of Leonard’s shoulders, cut little valleys in McCoy’s skin. “At first, anyway.”

McCoy nuzzled Jim’s cheek, traced the smell of sweat and aftershave, and then it struck him, all of a fucking sudden: he was holding a captain in his arms. Not just Jim anymore, not just Kirk, but a man that others would look up to, would trust, would die for, if that’s what he asked them to do. For a moment, Leonard couldn’t get his head around it. Where was the kid that’d seduced him, bare chested and shameless, or the one who freaked out when he failed his Interstellar Navigation midterm, who had a bad habit of losing his boots, who could drink McCoy under the table without batting an eye?

Kirk shifted against him, ghosted a kiss down his throat, humming, and ok, the kid was still there. But so was the guy with the gold shirt, the one who’d pushed a starship to the limit on his first test drive, who’d stormed a Romulan ship with only a phaser and a pissed-off Vulcan for backup, and oh, yeah: who’d saved the whole planet, to boot.

How could he second guess a man who was all of that?

“Yeah, ok, Jim,” he murmured. “We’ll play it by ear.”

Jim’s hand found his hair and tugged his head back, enough so they could see each other. “Don’t worry, Bones,” he said. “We’ll figure it out.”

The meld is awash in emotion, a fathom of love and devotion and joy, and Spock fights to keep his head above it even as it fills him, pushes through him, insistent and sweet.

“Love you,” Kirk said, in a voice Spock has not heard before, a voice, he knows, that is not meant for him. “I love--”

There’s a flood of color and sound in his head, like a rainbow caught in a turbine, spinning, making those feelings more vibrant, and there’s an ache, too, one that presses on his heart, digs its nails into his very soul, and it takes Spock a long, long moment to realize these emotions are coming from him.

            _No, no, I must not--!_  

**Spock?**           

This had been a danger all along, a calculated risk, but how could he have known it would be so _strong_ , this pull, like a gravity well from which he does not wish to escape.

“Love you,” Kirk said, in a voice Spock has not heard before, a voice not meant for him. “I love--”

He had been certain that he could conceal this, that his mental walls were sufficiently fortified to withstand any onslaught, any temptations that McCoy’s mind might surely possess, knowing that he and the captain are--

**What the hell, Spock! What’s going on? Are you alright?**

_Leonard, forgive me._

“Love you,” Kirk said, in a voice Spock has not heard before, a voice not meant for him. “I love--”

And then it’s no longer McCoy’s memory, it’s Spock’s dream, fevered and bright:

_Kirk’s hand on his cheek, his fingers restless, his thighs his thoughts spread eager_ __  
_over Spock’s lap, pouring molten into his mind._ _  
__“Love you,” he says. “Spock, I love--”_  

_He is alight, a living flame, his cock buried in his love’s beautiful body,_ _  
__the smell of his own slick, of Jim’s come, thick in the air, on Jim’s skin._  

_Kirk’s head falls back, his thighs shaking as Spock moves inside him._ _  
__“Ashayam,” he whispers. “Touch me. I want you to.”_  

_The cool weight of him in Spock’s hand, his fist._ __  
_“I am. There is no part of you, no piece,_ _  
__that is unknown to me, beloved.”_  

_The sound of Kirk’s pleasure as it breaks, a gentle roar in his ear, long trembles of sweet flesh,_  
_imagined for so long in silence, alone,_  
_and now_ \--

And now--

And now shame, a rush of guilt like bile:

            _I dreamt of him for many months. I did not know why. No, I knew. But I refused_  
            to believe it.  I dreamt of Jim and woke up on fire, burning from the inside out. I  
            would see him in the day, my captain, my friend, and I would not understand it, what my  
            thoughts did with him in the night.

McCoy’s thoughts turn over his, an unfamiliar reassurance that dampens the dread, spoils the flame.

**You care about him. Jesus, I know that--of course I do! There’s no reason to be ashamed.**

A rough, awful sound, the air scorched by scorn:

_You are wrong._

**Spock, you--**

_No! No. Look at me--here._


	6. Chapter 6

He does not wait for McCoy’s assent, his acknowledgement, he merely grabs the doctor’s mind and _shoves_ \--

            _Know what my thoughts have been, Leonard, what I have wished to do with he that is  
            yours, and then tell me I should not be ashamed._

\--shoves him onto the observation deck on the _Enterprise_ , the stars long strings of warp light on the other side of the viewport.

Spock caught his reflection in the ‘port, along with Uhura’s. She stood at his side, moving in easy time with the music that filled the cavernous space.

“Spock, hello, the party’s over here,” she said in a sing-song, her hand quick on his sleeve, tugging.

He obliged her and turned around. “Yes, thank you,” he said, not attempting to keep the bemusement from his voice. “I am well aware of the relative location of the festivities, Nyota.”

She laughed, louder than usual, a sound as bright as the red, creatively festooned sweater she wore. “Relative location, ok, yeah, sure, Spock. Right.”

She was intoxicated and glowing and as happy as he had seen her in months, and yet try as he might, he found his attention straying elsewhere.

Across the room, through the crowd, he saw the Captain standing with Mr. Scott, the doctor hovering a few steps away. Kirk was laughing at something Scott was saying, something that involved wild gesticulations and illustrative pantomime. Whatever it was, the captain looked delighted, despite his especially garish pullover, a strange green thing that blinked spastically in multicolored hues.

Odd attire, perhaps, but the ship’s holiday party did not bother him. The crew enjoyed it, Kirk had been giddy with excitement for a week beforehand, and even the Doctor was smiling. Or at least scowling more quietly.

The problem was not the party.

He glanced down at his own garment, uncertain. The antlered creature on his chest stared back, it seemed to him, equally dubious, its nose an alarming shade of red.

“I still do not see the point of these sweaters,” he said.

Uhura laughed again, her good humor enhanced, undoubtedly, by the glass of sparkling wine in her hand, the four others she’d left in her wake. “There’s no _point_ , Spock,” she said. “The point is that they’re hideous. And silly. Silly is a thing that many beings tend to enjoy, whether they ken to Earth traditions or not.” She took a look at his face and laughed again, long and loud. “Believe it or not, Earth traditions weren’t created especially to unnerve you, you know.”

“Of course not,” Spock said, “but--”

Uhura waved a hand at him, wobbly, pointed over his shoulder. “Spock. _Spock_.”

“Lieutenant?”

She pointed again. “The captain wants you.”

Spock pivoted, caught Kirk’s eye, and the captain waggled his finger, beckoning.

Uhura nudged his shoulder. “Go on. I owe Lieutenant M’Ress a dance, anyway. Shoo.”

He gave her a look, one they both knew she had seen many times, one that never failed to make her smile. “ _Shoo_?”

Her mouth twitched, mischievous. “It’s an old Earth term that means ‘get your ass over there, sir.’”

The observation deck was teeming with crew, ‘all in their cups,’ as Mr. Scott might say, and it took Spock a few moments to move through it. The beings around him, his shipmates, seemed overcome with the sort of exuberance born of release, of a break in routine, a feeling that Spock suspected rolled down from the Captain. They were taking a cue from their commander and it spoke well of him, his crew’s loyalty, their affection for him, Spock thought, though it was also quite curious. He had never served under an officer who inspired such--fondness.

He caught sight of Kirk’s face again, impatient, amused, his gaze fixed solely on Spock, and Spock felt a kick in his side, a jolt in his heart.

Inspired such fondness from the rest of the crew, that is.

“Spock!” the captain said as he approached. “Sorry to tear you away.”

“No need for apologies, Captain. Lieutenant Uhura and I had concluded our discussion.”

Kirk’s expression didn’t waver, but there was a flicker of something in his eyes that Spock could not quite discern. “Glad to hear it,” the captain said. “I must say, you’re looking particularly festive.” He tipped his head. “Bones, what do you think? Doesn’t Spock look festive?”

Spock watched a slow smile tip up over the doctor’s face.

“Think all he needs is the ears and he’d be a Christmas elf.” His eyes flicked playfully over Spock and his grin went wide. “Oh wait.”

Perhaps it was the hour, or the feeling in the room, but Spock could not ignore the bait. Did not try to resist it.

Instead, he drew his gaze over McCoy in a slow, deliberate crawl. “And you, Doctor,” he drawled, “you make a passable imitation of the figure known as the Grinch. Indeed, your disposition would lead one to wonder if he is not perhaps a family ancestor.”

The captain’s eyes widened and he snorted, fell back with a laugh, as McCoy’s face went slowly red. Ostensibly, he was fuming, but Spock could see it, the doctor’s grin, barely hidden beneath a scowl.

Kirk clutched his side and leaned against McCoy, his voice choked with laughter. “Oh my god. How the hell do you know about the Grinch, Spock?”

Spock allowed one eyebrow to rise. “As you know, my mother was human, Captain. And she quite enjoyed Earth celebrations.”

The captain’s amusement fell away. “Oh,” he said, quiet.

There was a moment of stillness between the three of them, remarkable within the din. They were respectful of his grief, these two men, and it startled Spock, how much he was still moved by it, these many months later.

“She enjoyed making me watch old Earth holos,” Spock said at last.

McCoy looked dubious. “And your father allowed that?”

Spock hesitated, chose his words carefully. “Family is…important to my father. Earth holidays were illogical and frivolous, but they were a time for family. And he would not dismiss that.” He took a breath, allowed his eyes to drop to the deck, not quite willing to meet Kirk’s eyes. “I have always spent this holiday with my family. It pleases me that I still have occasion to do so.”

It was still, again, for a moment, and Spock looked up.

The captain’s smile.

His smile was blinding. Soft and vulnerable, the kind of warmth that reminded Spock of good things—home and love and safe—and there was a gentleness there that made something swoop in Spock’s gut. He felt that kick in his side again, a jolt in his heart. He found that he could not speak.

The doctor cleared his throat, drew their eyes to him. “Could have a worse family than this one,” he said. “Believe me. Have I told you about the Christmas when my granddaddy made his own gin?”

“Made it?” Kirk said, incredulous. “Come on.”

McCoy put a hand over his heart. “No, I swear. Built the still in a day, right there in his living room, while my grandmother was out visiting. She got home, boom! Almost murdered him on the spot.”

“Wait, is this the same Christmas where your sister got arrested for driving drunk on a horse?”

Spock did not hear the doctor’s response because the captain’s hand was on his arm. Just for a moment, just a touch, just a squeeze he could feel through the sleeve of his bizarre sweater.

He looked at Kirk, startled, and the captain squeezed him again, let him go, his eyes never leaving McCoy.

A touch that Spock felt again in his dreams, flesh against flesh.

_The drag of Jim’s palm over his elbow, his bicep, across the curve of his shoulder, to his face._

_“Come, ashayam,” Spock says in his dream. “Come here. Let me touch you.”_

_But he is frozen, his limbs like lead, and he all can do is feel._  
_The hum of Jim’s thoughts, so close to him now,_  
_the press of Jim’s fingers against his lips, in._  
_The taste of his skin._  
_The sounds he makes when Spock sucks him, turns his tongue across the cool and the sweet._

_“Oh,” Kirk says, lovely murmur, his eyes fixed on Spock’s mouth,  
on the slide of his own fingers out and in and out. “Oh, yes. Beloved.”_

Spock awakened aflame, his skin burning, his mouth wet, and he brought himself to completion with Kirk’s voice in his ear-- _Beloved. Beloved_ \--came in great dark waves in the sheets, all over his hand, his body furious that he was alone, that he was touching himself and not his captain, his commander, his friend.

In the meld, Spock winces.

            _I did not know that he was yours then, Leonard, that you and he--_

**I know. I know you didn’t.**

_And even if I had, I fear it would not have been enough to make me look away._

The meld ripples, shifts, and now his board lay before him, the familiar tangle of information, images, sound. Alpha shift on the bridge was drifting to a close; the hours quiet, for once, even routine.

A week like this, chasing what felt like serenity, charting three systems that lay beyond Beta Naiobi. A welcome change after months charging in and out of the fray: Klingons, a coronation, a troublesome man called Harry Mudd.

In many ways, the quiet was welcome.

In others, however--

There was laughter behind him, the roll of Sulu’s voice, the Captain’s chiming in close behind, rich with amusement. He could picture the scene well enough: Kirk with one hand on Sulu’s chair, draped over the navigation station, trying to catch his breath.

_Jim’s breath, catching in his throat as Spock pushes into him,  
the moonlight smile hitching, _  
_the bright blue drifting closed, and he leans into Spock,_  
_drapes himself over Spock,_ _  
_ _rocks down as Spock fills him._

His fingers stuttered over his console and he closed his eyes for a moment, unbidden.

_“Ashaya,” Jim whispers, “please.”_  
_It stokes the fire in his blood, to hear Jim pleading for him, his movement lazy restless,  
_ _overcome by a wanting, a need, he knows only Spock can assuage._

“Spock?”

_He shudders and pulls Jim closer, whispers against his skin,_  
_licks the salty sweat away as he thrusts, for it is the same for him, that wanting,_  
_that certainty_  
_that only his love can relieve it, can give him what they both need._  
_A sound from his mouth, from his soul,_  
_and he clutches Kirk’s hips, thrusts into him faster._

“Uh, Spock?”

_Jim moans in his ear, sweet soft and unbroken,_  
_and they move together, an ancient push and pull,_  
_chasing each other towards release, towards_ \--

“Hellllooooo,” someone said at his shoulder. “Earth to Spock.”

He looked up, startled, to see the Captain at his side, lips tilted in a curious smile.

“Hi,” Kirk said. “Nice of you to join us, Commander.”

Spock cleared his throat. “Yes, Jim?” he said, steady, relieved that his voice did not shake.

The captain’s eyes widened, warm and pleased, and Spock realized what he had said: not an honorific, no title, just _Jim_ , the sort of informality Kirk seemed to want from him, for some inexplicable reason.

“Shift’s over,” Kirk said. “Or maybe you wanna stay here for another eight hours, huh?” He smiled at Spock, wide and lazy. “But man, I hope not.”

_Mine_ , Spock’s mind said, the fantasy flaring around him again as he--

_He shoves the word into Jim’s kiss as he comes, that beautiful body holding him tight,_ _  
_ _dragging the pleasure from him until he has no more left to give._

He forced himself to nod. “Yes, Captain. Thank you. I had become engrossed in my calculations.”

“Yeah, I can see that.” Kirk leaned a hip against Spock’s station and crossed his arms, casual. “You joining us for dinner?”

_He slumps into Spock, murmuring nonsense against his skin,  
pleasure and contentment drifting to him from every place they touch. _

He should retreat, Spock thought. Steady his mind. Meditate.

But Kirk’s face was curious, almost hopeful, and he found that he could not say no. Did not want to.

“Of course, Captain.”

And then it is as if a levee has shattered, for there is a cascade of memories, images, feelings, pelting the meld like a summer storm:

            Jim beside him in the turbolift, his head bent,  
            his shoulders bowed with exhaustion _,_ and Spock  
            has to ball his hands into fists, look away, so badly did he want to

            Jim laughing so hard he upended the chessboard, a pawn  
            flying, a rook, his face bright with delight  
  
            Jim two steps ahead of him in a cave, phasers drawn,  
            the sound of something furious beating its wings  
            around the next bend.  
            “Shut up and stay behind me, Spock. Look out for the--”

            Jim’s smile turned towards McCoy on the bridge,  
            a smile that he wanted to put there,  
            wanted to earn,  
            to learn with his mouth, to feel curled around his cock,  
            to see wet with his slick  
  
            The sound Jim made when he was struck, a bruise blooming  
            on his face, born from a pirate’s fist.  
            The pleasure Spock felt when he caught the pirate by the throat  
            hurled him into a wall, hurt him, broke him, wanted to

_Want_ , a yearning that pains him, shames him

_Forgive me, Doctor. Forgive_

**Hey--**

The meld wavers, stretches thin, and for a terrible moment

**Spock?**

it is breaking, collapsing under the weight of all that he feels, it’s too much, too much that he has not said, cannot say, and now and now and now the opportunity may be lost to him. The captain may be dying, may be too far away for the two of them to touch, and it his fault for wanting what he cannot have, for loving a man who belongs to another.

He feels McCoy’s mind reach for him and he eludes it, elides--  
  
**Spock, no! Don’t go, damn it! You and me, we’ve haven’t finished, we haven’t--!**

\--and beneath their feet, the sand feels fragile and the sky cracks: the shadows of their cabin on Evaline edging through, the lines of the bed, Jim’s body, all this bleeding into the meld, breaking, and Spock stretches a hand up, reaches for the cracks, works them open. That ache again, the taste of something forlorn, almost bitter.

_It is not my place. This is not mine to feel. This is yours. He is not mine._  

**He’s not yours to what? To care about? That’s fucking ridiculous.**

McCoy’s arm around his shoulders, a cool stretch in Spock’s fevered mind. The doctor’s thoughts are firm and sure, more at ease in the meld now than Spock’s own. His certainty heals the gaps in the sky, settles the clouds’ fervor, the angry spin of the sun. Leaches the ache away, healing, as is his wont, his calling, his gift. 

**I didn’t need to be inside your head to know how you feel about him.**

A whisper, a shiver.

            _How could you have known?_

Leonard laughs, a sound that skips across Spock’s thoughts like a stone skimming water.

**I hate to break it to you, but you’re not as subtle as you think, either. Gods, when you look at him, it’s written all over your face.**  

Spock has been so careful around the captain, so brutally aware of the need to school his features, to reign his expression in tight. No. He would remember such a slip, surely.

_I find that very difficult to believe._

**Uh huh. I bet you do.**

The sun has slipped in the sky and it flickers over their faces, great waves of orange and gold, and Leonard feels Spock exhale, feels his strained grip on the meld soften, relax.

**That’s right. Ok, Spock. Huh? You're ok.**

Leonard peers down and there’s a tide pool at their feet now, a swirl of eddies, a hundred currents of memory coming together, spinning, spooling. He slides off the rock and kneels besides it, sinks a hand into the pool, watches his memories cling. He reaches up for Spock, tugs his at hand, almost playful.

**Hey, Spock. Do you remember Denalbi?**


	7. Chapter 7

The banquet room on Denalbi. The three of them were at a small table just below the dais, cross-legged on cushions as the hive buzzed above them. Jim was settled between them, beaming at the whole place.    
  
“You should eat, Captain,” Spock said. “The Queen has been awaiting us for approximately 10 minutes and 26 seconds.”  
  
It was rude not to eat what the Queen offered, what was freely given from her table. It was a sign of amity from one leader to another, this sharing of comestibles, no matter how many legs everybody had, and official business--say, the negotiation of a new shipping treaty that would allow ships from Federation-aligned worlds to pass through Denalbi space--could only begin after said leader had polished it off. The whole thing. And Jim, McCoy thought, was purposely dragging his feet. 

“He’s got a point,” McCoy said. “Not nice to keep a lady waiting. Or your friends. We’d like to wrap this up sometime this century.”

Jim rolled his eyes and reached for the plate of sticky fruit. “Ok, ok. I can’t win when you team up against me.”

McCoy bumped his shoulder. “Frankly, it takes both of us to keep you in line, Captain, sir. The strength of one man’s not enough.”

“Look, there’s no need for--”

Spock caught McCoy’s eye. “Indeed,” he said, in that peculiar _I’m amused but not willing to show it_ way that he had. “He is stubborn, isn’t he?”

Kirk gave them both a look, his mouth full of some kind of berry. “I’m eating,” he said, mushy. “See? God, you two sometimes, I swear.”

McCoy laughed and Spock shot him an eyebrow and the doctor sat back on his hands, stared up at the kilometer of hive structure above them, intricate, earthy tunnels of turquoise and red that stretched into the sky. The air was full of wings, of a hundred conversations in a tongue he didn’t know, and even still, the sound Jim made as he ate, the soft suck of pleasure, latched into McCoy’s ear, reminded him of Jim on his knees, his hair caught in McCoy’s fist, his mouth open and willing.

Leonard’s cock twitched, and he turned, only to find Spock staring, too. The Vulcan’s face was composed, four sharp corners as always, but his gaze was hot and fixed on Kirk’s mouth, on the captain’s wet fingers, sliding out of his mouth.  
  
**You’re not invisible, Spock. Not to me. Or to Jim. You get that, right?**  
  
Another memory now: 

The bridge. Jim was bent over navigation, arguing some esoteric bullshit with Sulu, the Russian kid listening in hard, his brow furrowed. The stars were doing their thing up ahead and nobody was shooting at them and it was best McCoy had felt in days. Jim, too; he was smiling, even though his eyes were still haunted, a little bruised. He was hiding it well, sure, but it was _there._

The Romulans had been gentle with him--he’d come home almost too healthy, physically anyway, and that only underscored Leonard’s sense of helplessness.  A broken body he could fix; he wasn’t so sure about a broken mind.

The torture had been psychological, Jim had said, that first night back, clutching at McCoy in the dark. They’d filled his head with bright sharp hooks that snagged every fear in him, brought them roaring to awful life. What those fears were, what they’d made him endure, he wouldn’t say. Wasn’t ready to talk about, yet. But McCoy had caught Kirk watching him hard, watching Spock, too, his eyes fierce and terrified, so yeah. He could guess.

Jim was smiling now, sure, but it was still there. In the silent nightmares Len held him through, in the tight set of his shoulders, the way his hands clenched a little all the time now, the tiny distance between him and Sulu that Jim--Jim, who never missed an opportunity to touch someone--was maintaining with almost religious fervor.

How could anyone--everyone--look at Jim and not see it, that something was different, that the sheen of their captain’s smile had turned hollow tin? Because, McCoy thought, letting the back of Kirk’s chair take his weight, the kid didn’t want them to. He wanted everybody to see their bright, brilliant captain, the big charming smile.

So they did. Except Spock.

Spock, who’d watched Kirk with increasing concern, who’d asked Leonard, so carefully it had been almost painful, if Jim was really all right.

“Ask him yourself,” McCoy had said, peering up from a PADD.

Spock stood in McCoy’s office, stiff, ignored the chair that was right the hell there. “I did,” he said and were it anyone else, McCoy would call that note in his voice plaintive. “His response was not convincing.” 

“Oh, it wasn’t, huh?”

Spock’s eyes lit on his, lingered. “I trust that you will be more forthcoming.”

McCoy had wanted to say something, had wanted to spill his fears and suspicions out on his desk and sort through them with Spock. Spock was a creature of the mind; he’d know how worried Leonard should be, what he should do, what he should say when Kirk cried out in the middle of the night, his tears pressed into McCoy’s chest, his body shaking, shaking.

And yet, instead, he’d leaned back in his chair, given up a shrug. “I don’t know what to tell you. He had a rough go of it, Spock. If and when he’s ready to tell us more than that, he will. For now, all I can say is that he’s fit for duty, full stop.”

Spock hadn’t bought it, from either of them, Jim’s easy smiles or Leonard’s too-casual dismissal. That much had been clear in Leonard’s office, in the drawn lines of Spock’s face.

And on the bridge, now, it was even more stark.

He was standing to the right of Jim’s chair, his hands clasped in front of him, and for once, the mask was gone, knocked aside in favor of worry, of something that looked a hell of a lot like affection. He looked like McCoy felt: like if he could, he’d drag Jim off this fucking bridge and tuck him away, kiss his wounds with eager fingers and let the rest of the universe be damned.

Jim said something that made Chekov laugh and stood up straight, turned. Got a look at Spock’s face and paused. “Hey,” he said. “You ok?”

For a moment, Spock looked startled and then the mask snapped back, a door closing. “Certainly, Captain. I am well. And you?”

Kirk squinted at him. “You sure? ‘Cause you look a little green around the gills.”

“Around the--?”

McCoy took pity on him. “He looks fine to me,” he barked, waving the words like a cape. “Methinks the Captain is projecting.”

That got Jim’s attention. “Methinks you have places to be other my bridge, Bones.”

“ _Your_ bridge? Oh, excuse me. I didn’t see your name on the damn door.”

“It doesn’t have to be. It’s understood--by everybody but you, apparently.”

Spock slipped away, settled back at his post. Gave McCoy a quick glance that said _thank you_.

“Oh, I understand it fine,” Leonard said. “I’m just doing my duty to keep the captain the right size for his britches. Sir.”

Kirk made a face, made for his chair. “I appreciate your concern”--he swiveled, shot a look at Spock, too--”both of you, I do, but you have better things to do than nursemaid me. For example: have you completed prep for our landing on Epsilon Canaris tomorrow?”

“Captain, I am in the final stages of my--”

“No, not yet,” McCoy said, “but I’ve got plenty of time to--”

“Mmmhmm,” Jim said. “Get to it, please, gentlemen. I expect a full report in two hours. Briefing room one, if you please.”

_He hides there._

**Hmm? Where is that?**

_In command. In his role. In his duties._

**Don’t we all, sometimes?**

_Perhaps._

Kirk tipped his head back and caught McCoy’s eye, the captain chased away by Jim. A shadow of him, anyway. “Go on, get out of here,” he said. “I’ll keep an eye on the universe while you’re gone, Len.” His lips turned, just a touch. “I won’t let it get away. I promise.”

            _And he yet he takes some comfort in your concern._  

**In yours, too. Trust me: the bigger stink he makes about it, us fussing after him, the more that he needs it.**

_You care for him deeply._

The tide pool shimmers, sunlight reflected from its depths. McCoy turns his hand, watches thousands of Jims swirl, catch, sail away. Seven years’ worth of images and feelings, pictures of their lives together: some vast, sprawling landscapes, others portraits, still others carved on the head of a pin.

**Well. I love him, gods help me. Took me a while to come to terms with it, but I do.**

            _Why?_

**Why what?**

_Why did you find it difficult to come to terms with, as you say?_

**Because--**

McCoy sits back, lets his fingers linger in the water.

**Because at some level, Jim doesn’t really give you a choice, does he? He makes you want to look at him, to love him, and trying not to is like--it’s like doing your best not to see the sun on the clearest damn summer day. It was hard to accept something that felt inevitable, if that makes any sense.**

            _It does._

Spock settles beside him and Leonard realizes that his uniform is gone, the dark pants and stiff boots replaced with robes that catch the color of the sand. They ripple beneath Spock, between them, and Leonard realizes this is Spock’s image of himself, how he sees himself in the privacy of his own mind. Spock catches his stare, turns his lips up, just a touch, and stretches his feet, bare and pale, towards the water.

_What were you saying about the captain?_

**Oh. Yeah, uh. Believe me, I’ve tried to look away from him. More than once. When he’s pissed me off or he’s pissed at me or when I feel so fucking much for him that it feels like I’m full, like he’s taken me over and there’s no place left for me, inside my own head. I've tried.**

            _That does not sound pleasant._

**It isn’t, sometimes. Loving him can be fucking exhausting.**

_And yet--_

**And yet it can also be--usually is--the best damn thing I’ve ever done in my life.**

Confusion, an echo that rises from the water, hangs in the air.

            _You care for him so deeply, Leonard, and yet you do not object to my--to--_

**To your what?**

The soft sink of Spock’s imagination again, and McCoy feels

_Jim’s arms around his neck, Jim’s fingers tracing the tip of his ear,_  
_his heart moving under the weight of Spock’s palm._  
_Kirk’s eyes are closed, but he is not sleeping:_  
_his body is at ease but his mind is still moving, a bright fox in the dark_  
_as he strokes Spock’s face, learning him as Spock is learning him,_  
_inside and out._  
_Rough flowers bloom in Spock’s chest with each touch, petals spread wide_  
_against the heat, the power of the sun, and Spock is overwhelmed by it,_ _  
_ _all that he feels for this man. His ashayam._

It takes McCoy a moment to find himself again, so deep are Spock’s feelings, his dreams, a never-ending desert with every grain singing with the touch of the sun.

Spock forms words first, the desert giving way to bitter leaves, bitter dregs that turn the meld dim:  
  
            How can you not object to this, Leonard, the ways in which I care for him?

**How can I--? Because not every being in the universe is monogamous, for one thing. Because I know you’d never force your feelings on him. Because--because I know he cares for you, Spock. Surely you know that.**

_He--?_  


**He’s caught us with the same trap, you and me.**

_I don’t understand._

The sky spreads wide and Kirk is before them, stretched out in McCoy’s narrow Academy bed.

“Is this a party of one?” Kirk said. “I didn’t know you just wanted to watch.”

**Like I said: once he's got it in his head that he wants you, Spock, wants to be the light around which your life turns, well. Good goddamn luck looking anywhere else.**


	8. Chapter 8

The same words again, sharper now:

“Is this a party of one?” Jim said, his voice thick, insouciant. “I didn’t know you just wanted to watch.”

He preened under McCoy’s gaze, sliding his hands down his chest, over his hips, biting his lip as he caught his cock where it arched hard against his belly.

McCoy grinned, settled at the end of the bed, still in his cadet reds. “You love being watched, kid.”

Jim’s hips jerked and he tugged at his dick, firm. “Mmmmmm. I’ve got no idea what you mean.”

“‘Course you don’t,” McCoy said. “You don’t know exactly how fucking gorgeous you are when you jerk off. In my bed, by the way. What the hell’s wrong with yours?”

A smirk. “I like your bed, Bones.”

“You like my something.”

Kirk laughed, his hand moving steady, his eyes never leaving McCoy’s. “You know I do.”

In the meld, Leonard can sense Spock’s hesitation, his desire. Something that feels almost like fear.

_Surely--surely the captain would not want me to see this. Even with your consent._

**I think he’d be more than ok with it.**

_How can you be certain?_

**Lord, what part of ‘he cares about you’ do you not fucking get, Spock?**

McCoy tugged open his collar, amusement and arousal playing tag in his gut. “I bet you’ve been hard all day, thinking about this. Weren’t you? Hmmm? Thinking about me watching you play with that big, pretty cock.”

A punch of sound. “Len--”

“You want me to see, huh? To see you and know that I can’t touch, can’t flip you over and shove into you like I did last night.” He curled his fingers in the sheets, the memory still visceral. “God, honey, you let me in so deep.”

“Felt so good,” Kirk said, half a gasp. “Jesus.”

“Did it?”

Jim’s fist flew, his chest a storm of red. “ _Fuck_. Yeah, it did. You did.”

Spock’s thoughts are hot and sharp, like saltwater, his arousal an undercurrent that quickens McCoy’s own. It feels weird, like Leonard’s head is full of pins and needles, like the blood in some part of him had stopped moving, stopped living, is only now flowing back towards life.

**Look at him, Spock.**

            _I am, I--_  
  
The want in him sharpens, and he leans into Len, almost without thought

**Go on.  Look closer. Look at the way he’s bending his knees, huh, the way he’s moving his hand. See how he likes it?**

_Yes._

**You see him, Spock? See the sweat pooling in the dip of his throat? Listen to the way he’s breathing, those big, hungry gasps.**

“Oh,” Jim bit out. “Oh gods, Bones. Don’t stop. Keep talking to me, come on--”

**He’s beautiful like this, isn’t he?**

_Yes. Oh, yes._

A whisper, a faint caress.

            _You are beautiful together_.

“Is that why you had to jerk off as soon as you got home?” McCoy said, low. “Couldn’t wait for me, could you? Just had to get back in my bed and pull it out and think about me touching you.”

“About your cock,” Jim said, his head falling back, roses curling up his throat. “About your goddamn cock in me, Len. I couldn’t”--his hips twisted and he gasped, like breathing was more than he has time for--”god, I need you to fuck me. Fuck me, come _on_ , please, I want--”

McCoy reached out, turned the tip of his finger over the soft skin of Jim’s ankle. A whisper. “Look at you,” he said. “Look at you, honey. You’re so gorgeous right before you fucking come.”

Kirk’s hand stuttered and he gave up the prettiest noise, sugar and stained glass; shot in tight, lazy jerks over his fist, his stomach. He was grinning when McCoy kissed him, his mouth soft with self-satisfaction.

“Take this shit off,” Jim muttered, his fingers pulling sticky at Leonard’s shoulders. “I wanna touch you.”

McCoy kissed his throat, licked at the heat there, the sweet. “Is that an order?”

Jim laughed, lost the sound in Leonard’s hair. “Was I using my Captain’s voice?”

“Mmmmm.”

“Well, I gotta practice on somebody.”

_This is an old joke between you._

**The oldest.**

Leonard lifted his head and the kid was grinning at him, blue skies for miles. He was falling, he had fallen, fell--he felt the ground shift beneath him: an imperceptible, permanent earthquake.

“What?” Jim said. “Why’re you looking at me like that?”

**A few months, we’d been together then, and the bastard had already kicked out a couple chambers of my heart and made himself at home there, like it was all his to begin with. Like he’d always been there, always would. Some part of me was pissed about that, how easily I’d let him in, this kid who could charm the red off an apple.**

_As if you had let him have his way, as if the decision was his and not yours._

**Something like that, yeah. But really, I knew that was bullshit. It was just a way of distancing myself from it, how much I cared about him. Until I couldn’t anymore.**

Spock’s thoughts sing to him in wordless sympathy, and he feels blood that is not his own rising, emotions that he can’t name pooling in the meld, seeping up through the sand. Spock’s hand beside his in the tide pool, their fingers tangled almost chastely, the meld deepening 

            _Yes. I understand._

The words came out so easily it was as if they’d been waiting on a long time on his tongue, waiting for his head to catch up. “I love you, Jim.”

Kirk blinked. “You, ah. You do?”

“Yeah, I do. That so hard to believe?”

“No,” Jim said, touching his face, tracing the line of his jaw. “No, it’s not.”

“Ok then.”

A smile, a perfect, private thing. “I love you, too.”

“Ah,” McCoy said, “but lemme guess: you’d decided that you wanted me to say it first.”

Kirk’s grin kicked wide and puckish. “Yep.”

McCoy groaned, pressed his forehead to Jim’s shoulder and did it again. “You’re fucking ridiculous.”

“No, you’re still fucking dressed,” Kirk retorted, “that’s what’s ridiculous.”

There is a pang of longing, an ache of want that is different than what he’s felt before, a longing for _this_ and not Kirk, and Leonard leans into him, voice turning self-deprecating.

**It ain’t all sunshine and roses, though. Your captain can be a real shit. We both can.**

The walls give way and shift, and Leonard was alone in his quarters on the _Enterprise_ , light years away from San Francisco, from the man he had been then.

He was alone in his quarters and he was angry; no, he was pissed, because the rooms didn’t feel like _his_ , and that was the goddamn problem.

He’d told Jim, very fucking specifically, that they weren’t going to live together onboard ship. Period. And yet, more often than not, he spent the night in Kirk’s quarters, buried for a time in Jim’s body, lost forever in his smile, and damn happy about it, too. As happy as he could be, out here in the dark nowhere of space.

When he was there, wrapped up in Jim’s arms and sheets, Kirk finally still and humming under the steady sweep of Len’s palm on his back--he loved it. Loved Jim.

But when he stepped away, when there was a little bit of distance, when he wasn’t tangled up in his duties, in some idiot doing his best to bleed out in MedBay, when he sat in the dark empty of his own quarters, he couldn’t help but see it: how much of his life Jim had taken over, how much space that McCoy once thought of his own that the kid--the captain--had managed to eclipse.

He lifted the bottle, tipped it back. The whiskey burned going down, and that was good. He liked the burn. Wanted more of it. But the bottle was almost empty and it was too soon for that. He wasn’t done wallowing yet, damn it.

The door peeled open and Jim stepped in, framed by the bright corridor light. “Bones? What the fuck? What’re you doing in the dark?”

“Getting drunk.” he said, succinct. He glared at the bottle and lurched to his feet. “I am getting goddamn fucking plastered, Captain." 

He caught the bewildered blue of Kirk’s eyes as he fumbled towards the closet and wasn't that just a bitch, huh? For the kid to be confused. He stuck his hands in a couple of drawers, searching. “What the fuck are you doin’ here?”

“Looking for you. You weren't in my quarters.”

McCoy’s fingers snagged on the good stuff and he drew it out, a fine old bottle of bourbon he’d won in a poker game, way back when. “Yeah, well, I got better shit to do than wait around for you, ok?”

Jim took two steps forward, finally, and the door shut behind him, closing them into the quiet dark. “I’m sure you do. Not sure that getting wasted is high on that list, though.”

“You weren't there either,” McCoy said around the mouth of the bottle. He took a long swig and he could feel Kirk’s disapproval, a wave of it that caught him in the chin. “Thought we were meeting there after alpha shift.”

Something flickered in Jim's eyes, something familiar that made his stomach twist and for a second he was in another room, another bottle in his hand, seeing that same guilt in another gaze.

Jim wasn’t Joss. Leonard knew that, he did. It was just--

It was just, he thought, going back for another swallow, a little too close for comfort. A string of late nights on the ward, working with some green residents, she’d said, so green they got sympathy pains when patients went into labor, or passed out, or ran from the room and puked out in the hallway.

Green, she’d said. That was all.

Gods only knew how many lovers she’d burned through before word finally came his way, and the worst part was it wasn’t the fucking that hurt him--they’d both had other partners before, but always in the open, full disclosure. It was the lying that broke him, the casual way she’d stopped caring and lied to his face about it, night after night.

Green, she’d said. That was.

He felt his mouth twist, sharp edged and awful, and he spat: “Well now, how is Spock these days, huh?”

Kirk waves at the wall, drew up the lights a little. “Wait,” he said. “You’re pissed because I was with Spock? We were working, for gods’ sake. I told you. We owe Komack our report on that Antares thing. He’s throwing a fit over--”

“Working, huh? Like we worked in my office last week?”

Last week. Jim had come to MedBay for an update on two new ensigns who were showing real signs of maladjustment. Last week, when he’d locked the door and kissed Jim stupid and then bent him over the desk, teased him open like they had the time, like there weren’t 500 places they both had to be, a million things that had to get done, oh. And it had been a while since he’d had the willpower not to give in when Jim started to whine, started canting his hips back and begging without any words, since he hadn’t drawn his fingers out and slid his dick in, but last week, he had. Last week, he’d found a good steady rhythm and leaned over Jim’s back as he worked, his wrist twisting, and whispered: “Touch yourself.”

After, Kirk had turned to him, red faced and dazed, managed: “Shit, we should work in your office more often."

Jim stiffened, his expression flashing between fury and hurt before it landed firmly in anger, and something in McCoy twisted, pleased, vicious. “Yeah, Bones,” Kirk snapped. “Just like that.”

“‘Course,” Leonard said, the bottle unsteady in his hand. “Of fucking course. Just a matter of time.”

“Gods, you believe that. You seriously believe that I’d do that to you.” The disbelief and hurt in Jim's voice almost broke through Leonard's anger. Almost. But there was a burn in his chest, and not a good one. 

Shit. The kid took up so much goddamn _room._

“You lied to me,” McCoy said.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“This Komack thing, this secret mission to Antares, I mean. Come on. You’re gone for a week and you can’t tell me why?”

“I followed orders,” Jim snapped. “It’s a sensitive fucking matter, Bones, jesus, why are you--?”

“Oh no, no: you _lied._ To me. But Spock, oh hey, Spock can know.”

“Spock was vital to the--”

“Oh, vital, sure. Sure he was. Because it’s Spock and it’s _orders_. But me”--a sound came out of his mouth, an awful lurch, and he stumbled--”I’m just supposed to wait for you, even when I’m in the goddamn dark.” He laughed and swung an arm out, taking in the whole room, and stumbled again, nearly fell. “Wanna know what I’m doin’ in the dark here, honey? I’m waiting for you.”

Kirk made a noise, angry. “What do you expect me to do? My orders were very goddamn precise--nobody was to know the specs of that Antares thing, no one, except Spock. It wasn’t my choice, Len. It was Command.”

He couldn’t argue with that. That was the worst part. He _knew_ he couldn’t argue. He’d never tried to before; hell, this wasn’t the first time Jim had run off at an Admiral’s whim for parts unknown. Wasn’t even the first time he’d taken Spock with him.

He’d never minded before.  Had never worried about the time they spent together, the closeness between Kirk and Spock that anyone with two eyes could see. Hell, most days, he was grateful that Spock was there, a shot of steady logic and cool control to balance Kirk’s gut instincts, his whim. And gods knew he appreciated that Jim had Spock at his side, that Spock was the one who always brought the captain home, even if sometimes Jim was broken and bleeding. He was glad that Kirk had someone to talk to, someone other than himself. Captain was a lonely chair. Spock was good for Jim. Leonard knew that. He did.

It wasn’t logical or even reasonable, any of it, what he was feeling. He knew that, yeah. Didn’t matter.

“Yeah,” he muttered, an echo into the bottle.

The anger was draining away, slowly, and Kirk was standing there, watching him, filling up the space in between. The anger was leaving, but the pain wasn’t. The weird pulse of paranoia was still there. Joss’s shadows in the dark.

Green, she’d said. That was all.

“You should go,” he said. He leaned over hard and found the bed, settled on the edge without spilling. Something like a win, there.

            _Leonard--_

“You’re kicking me out?” Jim said, incredulous.

“It’s better,” Leonard said, the taste of bourbon in his mouth running bitter. “Believe me. Right now, you should go.”

Jim’s hands flexed and for a second, McCoy half-hoped he’d storm across the room, whip the bottle from Leonard’s hands and sink down next to him in the bed.

But he didn’t.

He turned on his heel and left without another word.

Leonard waved off the lights and sat in the dark for a long, long time, alone with his bourbon.

Still burned, going down.

There is pain and guilt in Spock, now, in the way he pulls away from Leonard.

            _Leonard, you must know--_

**I know. Neither of you would do that to me. Hell, I knew it then.**

            _Then why would you say it?_

**Shit, aside from--aside from past experience coming back to bite me in the ass? Look, loving Jim isn’t easy. When I’m not scared he’s going to get himself killed on some damn mission, he’s tied up with the ship, with command. Or I am. Half the time we’re together, we’re too tired or he’s too hurt to do anything but be with each other.**

A shudder of longing, of _want,_ slips through and Leonard sighs.

**Damn it, man. I don’t resent you.**

**** _You would be within your rights, if you did._

**It’s not that simple. You’re his--he needs you, too. I spend so much time putting that kid back together, making sure he’s taken care of--how the hell could I resent somebody who cares about him, really fucking cares, the way that you do. Somebody he needs as much he needs you.**

Spock is watching him. Curiosity and something else--something sweet and fragile, something very like hope, drifts on the air.

**Do you know why we asked you to come on shore leave with us?**

_I had assumed it was a gesture of comity, of friendship. One born perhaps of a  
            misplaced sense of obligation._

**Obligation?**

_I suspected that the Captain felt sorry for me._

**Why in the hell would you think that?**

_He proffered his invitation only after I informed him that I had planned to remain on_  
           _Starbase 37 for the duration of my leave, as I had insufficient time to travel to New_  
_Vulcan and back._

**You mean, he didn’t invite you until he found out you didn’t already have plans?**

_Precisely._

**Spock, where I come from, that’s called manners. Why do you think he asked you what your plans were in the first place?**

_I thought he was attempting to ascertain the relative location of each member of his  
            command staff should there be an emergency situation which required--_

**You’re an idiot.**

McCoy caught the back of Spock’s neck. Tugged him close.

**He asked you because he wanted you with us. Because I do.**

Spock’s skin was hot under his hand, his eyes dark and startled.

_But why?_

Jim’s skin, flush under McCoy’s fingers. The walls of McCoy’s quarters, soft in shadow.

**This is why, Spock. Look.**


	9. Chapter 9

The room was warm, the air heavy with the scent of their lovemaking. Three days without any real time alone, three days of perpetual crisis, of broken bodies on biobeds, of the Captain’s voice on the intercom, steady over the sound of yet another red alert, and was it any wonder they hadn’t made it to the bed the first time? That they’d barely made in the door before Leonard shoved Jim against the bulkhead, before they were kissing messy and fast, before he’d pulled Kirk’s cock out of his trousers and made him come like that, from just McCoy’s hand, his voice.

“You should have come to me,” Leonard said. “You should have come to me and let me take care of you, honey. Let me fill you up. Could've made you feel so fucking good.”

Jim groaned, the sound like a thousand worlds dying. “I couldn’t do that, you know I couldn’t. Don’t say shit like that to me.”

“Like what?”

Kirk’s nails dug into his neck. “Like it’s my fault it’s been so long. Like it’s my fault you haven’t been inside me.”

“Fuck, Jim--”

“Like it’s my fault the Neutral Zone is a fucking joke,” Kirk said, his voice swinging wild, “and every time we’re out here, we’re two steps from being blown to shit. Like it’s my fault your goddamn Sickbay is full. Like it’s my fault that what we do is dangerous and to pretend otherwise, Bones, it’s dumb, it’s so fucking dumb.”

“Baby,” McCoy murmured, kissing his mouth to still its desperation. He stroked Kirk’s cheek, rubbed a thumb under the head of his cock. Felt him shudder and swell. “Shhh, come on. I know.”

Jim lifted his hips, his words breaking. “And I just--Len, I just--” 

“I know,” Leonard said again, turning the words against Jim’s mouth. “Let it out. Let me have it, sweetheart. Let it go.”

He’d come like that, desperate, clawing at Leonard’s shoulders. Had fallen naked into McCoy’s bed and spread his legs. Had been hot inside, tight, then slick from McCoy’s fingers, his mouth. Had touched Leonard’s face as he pushed in, as they fucked, his eyes like novas, full of shattered light.

“I love you,” he’d said as Leonard’s hips staggered, as his cock gave up all it could. “Love you so fucking much, you know that?”

They lay in the sheets, after, McCoy lulled by the sweep of Kirk’s back under his fingers, the lazy curve of his ass.

“Bones?”

“Hmm?”

“Can I ask you something? About Spock?”

“Sure.”

Kirk hesitated. “So. You, ah. You know how I feel about him.”

“Yeah,” McCoy said. “I know.”

Jim had always been fond of Spock--

            _I find that exceptionally difficult to believe._

**Well, more or less.**

\--and all the bullshit with Khan, then their first year out in the great wide beyond of deep space had shored that fondness up into something stronger, something more. If it’d happened years ago, at the Academy, right after his divorce, McCoy wasn’t sure how he’d have taken it, Jim feeling so much for somebody that wasn’t him. He wasn’t sure that Jim would have even told him, back then. He might have hidden it and let their relationship rot from the unspoken.

But Kirk had told him, laid the cards out as his hand had evolved, and McCoy was old enough and well-versed in the ways of Kirk enough that he saw it as a gift, having someone with them in this godforsaken nowhere who brought out the best in Jim the way that Spock did, love and cunning and high-stakes bluffs balanced by deliberation and logic and well-chosen paths.

It was different than what he and Jim had, no question, but it still deserved the same name: love.

            _What?_

**Jesus christ, man. What the hell did I just say? He loves you.**

A burst of joy in the meld, in Spock’s voice, in the sound of far-away bells on a city street, echoing from a red sky. 

            _I did not know, I could not, how could he not--?_

There are echoes of gulls over the water. Spock’s breath hot and sweet is on Leonard's cheek, and the Vulcan is shaking, his body bending in the wind. McCoy gets a fist in those soft robes, presses his palm against Spock’s side, his heart. 

**Welcome to the club, buddy.**

A smile McCoy has never seen in real life, beyond the meld, but here it is on Spock’s face, rich and full and relieved.

            _Love. Yes, I do, it is, I--_

Kirk sat up a little, perched his chin on McCoy’s chest. “Ok. So how do you feel about him?”

“Oh,” McCoy said, breezy, “you know. He’s alright.”

Jim poked him in the ribs. “Bones.”

“Look, where’s this coming from?”

“It’s something I’ve been thinking about.” He turned, wormed against McCoy’s side, his hand spread over Leonard’s chest. “And I kinda think you have, too. I’ve seen you staring at him, you know.”

McCoy snorted. “Staring? Come on.”

“The other day in the briefing room.” Jim’s voice fell. “During the debrief about the Regula colonies. You couldn’t keep your eyes off him. Even when he wasn’t talking, you were looking at him. It’s not the first time I’ve noticed it, either.” He drew his thumb over McCoy’s nipple. “Like in the gym, all the time, when we’re sparring.”

“Maybe I like watching him kick your ass.”

“Mmm. In your office that one time, remember? You were supposed to be yelling at me but your eyes kept drifting over to him.”

“His shirt was torn. It was distracting.”

Kirk chuckled. “Uh huh. What about this morning in the turbolift, then, after breakfast? You looked like you were counting the stitches in his seams.”

McCoy flushed. “Well, I mean, maybe I appreciate him physically. Every once and awhile.”

“You’re allowed to look,” Kirk said. “He is pretty, isn’t he?”

“Hmmm. I’d go with _striking_.”

Jim pushed up on his elbow and stared into McCoy’s face, serious. “So, okay, the question stands: how do you feel about him?”

McCoy let his knuckles drift over Kirk’s cheek. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“Len--”

“Jim,” McCoy said, “how about you quit beating around the proverbial bush and ask what you wanna ask. No need to be so damn cagey.”

There was a pause. Jim took a deep breath. And then two. “Would you--how would you feel about--I mean. If we could ask Spock to be part of this, what we have. Would you want that?”

In the meld, McCoy can feel Spock’s shock like a ricochet, an arrow driven into the sand. This is a place, a memory, marked and not easily forgotten.

            _Part of--?_  
  
Kirk’s face was awash in uncertainty, his usual bravado chased away, and it made something in McCoy’s heart ache. He sat up a touch, just enough to find Jim's mouth. “Hmmm,” he said, brushing the sound against Kirk’s lips. “I guess that depends.” 

“On what?”

“You talking about asking him to bed, or something else?”

“Something else.”

“Ok,” McCoy said, seriously. ”What would that look like to you?”

Kirk didn’t hesitate. “Like the two of us are, but with three.”

“Don’t think it’d be that simple, honey.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” He stroked McCoy’s stomach. “Still. I think it’s worth a try. I think it could be really good. But--what do you think? I mean, is that even something you’d want?”

Leonard thought about that, held the idea in his head, let it play out in his words. “Well,” he said, “Spock cares about you a lot, there’s no doubt about that. Hell, if I didn’t know better, I’d say that he’s in love with you. So whatever you ask of him, Jim, credits to donuts he’ll say yes.”

“You didn’t answer my question. Again.”

“You noticed that, huh?”

Kirk curled his fingers, dug half moons around Leonard’s heart. “Yep.”

McCoy gazed up at them, those great blue skies studying him from the dark. “I guess I’m just--gods, I can’t read Spock’s mind. I don’t know what the hell goes on inside his head. Not sure I’d want to. I don’t know how he feels about me, period, much less how he’d feel about us, about this.”

Jim blinked. “Wait,” he said, “so you’re not gonna tell me how you feel about Spock until you know how he feels about you?”

“Did I say that? I didn’t say that.”

“You basically did, yeah.”

The words got away from him, chased themselves out of his mouth. “Look, it’s real simple, ok? I don’t want to end up in a situation where I’m the odd man out, the leaky third wheel that gets no grease, or whatever. Pick your terrible metaphor of choice.” He aimed for a glare but couldn’t quite find it. “There, you happy now?”

“Bones, you won’t be--”

“You don’t know that.”

“I _do_ ,” Kirk said. “You’re goddamn right I do.” He punched a fist in the sheets beside McCoy’s hip and leaned down, got them nose to nose. “I love you, you idiot, and I am sure as fuck not gonna put you in a situation where that is not 150 percent clear to all parties involved. You got that?”

Leonard caught Kirk’s wrist. “I got it.”

“It’s both of us or none of us, Len. We’re a package deal.” Kirk tipped their foreheads together, let his voice drift to a whisper. “Whatever you think of Spock, you have to know he’d respect that, if we asked him to.”

            _Of course I would._

A whisper again, another easy caress. Those words again, ones McCoy thought he’d imagined:

_You are beautiful together._

**That’s all Jim. I just get the better end of his reflection.**

_No, Leonard. It is you, too._

Overhead, the sun is cresting, red and drunk and lovely, and the tide pool shudders, fades back into the sand. Spock presses close to him, squeezes his hand, a hairsbreadth from a kiss.

_I know you do not believe it._

**I look in the mirror same as everybody else, Spock.**

A sigh, a sweep of frustration.

            _You misunderstand me. As always. It is not only your physical self to which I refer._

He touches Leonard’s face, a long sweep that makes McCoy shiver.

_Let me show you how beautiful you are._


	10. Chapter 10

The gymnasium, all its lights blazing. The joyful shouts of children, of adults who had forgotten what it felt like to be that young and loud, the hum of everyday life on the _Enterprise_ : the clash of an epee class, the hum of the weight machines, the faraway splash of the pool.

Not everyone was fond of the cacophony, however.

Spock was seated on the floor near the far bulkhead, an Ennien child named Four Winds snoring enthusiastically in his lap, his claws easing in and out as he dreamed. Spock’s hand was spread over the child’s side and and he could feel the happy hum of the kit’s mind: at play, even in sleep.

McCoy stood nearby, holding his sister, Blackstreak. Her tail was curled around his back and she was shaking, her whiskers twitching in fear.

“Hey, hey,” the doctor said, his voice low and kind. He turned the child in a slow circle, bouncing her slightly. “I know. This is kind of scary, huh? Different.”

The Enniens were bipedal felinoids, like the Caitians--ancient cousins of M’Ress, perhaps--but they came from a world that had eschewed both technology and offworlders for generations. The devastation wrought by a recent plague, however, had convinced the planet’s leadership that strong ties with the Federation held far more benefit than did their continued isolation. And, after some delicate if markedly accelerated negotiations, the _Enterprise_ was ferrying a few dozen Enniens to the Europa colonies for medical training and further diplomacy. The party also included included a dozen children, most of whom were currently tearing around or swinging from or leaping through all the gym had to offer, various crewmembers chasing gleefully after them.

These two children, though, had shied away from the melee, had sought out McCoy and Spock and taken refuge in this quiet corner.

Blackstreak pressed her nose against McCoy’s neck, her distress evident. “No trees,” she said in scratchy Standard. “No treessss, Leonard. Where do I climb?” She gave a soft squawk and peered anxiously into the doctor’s face. “Where is the sky?”

McCoy stroked the child’s back, his fingers moving gently through her fur. “The sky’s outside, sweetheart. All around us instead of just up above.” He kissed the top of her head and moved towards the nearest viewport, its iris shuttered. “Do you want to see it? I can show you.”

“How issss it all around?” Blackstreak said. “The sky is up. Below’s ground.”

McCoy reached carefully for the viewport controls. “At home, that’s true. On my planet, too. But remember what Jim said? About where we are, right now?”

Blackstreak considered that. “In the space,” she said. “He said your ship moved between stars.”

“Mmmhmm. That’s right.” The iris slid open with a click, the viewport blooming in the bulkhead. “Look,” McCoy said, nudging the child’s head with his chin. “Take a look at that, honey. See? It’s like Jim said. We’re in the space between stars.”

They were running on impulse, a lazy glide towards Europa, and beyond the durasteel, there was light in the black, flickers of heavenly bodies long dead, of worlds as yet undiscovered.

“Oh,” Blackstreak said. “Pretty.” She stretched out a paw and pressed it to the viewport, then another, her nails tapping the glass, and Spock could see her straining, pushing as hard as she could. “But Leonard, what? No touch?”

McCoy peered out with her into the dark. “Hmmm. Can you touch the sky at home?”

“Maybe, if there’s a big enough tree. But I haven’t found one yet.” She looked up at McCoy, her green eyes glowing. “We must be tall now. Your ship is very tall, Leonard. But not tall enough to touch the space, right?”

The doctor smiled and scratched gently between Blackstreak’s ears. “That’s right. We can’t quite reach it. Not yet. Doesn’t mean we stop trying.”

She rubbed her nose against his chin, under his jaw, and turned back to the viewport. “All around ssssky,” she murmured. She settled back in the crook of McCoy’s arm, her head against his shoulder, still intent on the stars, her tail swinging, slowing, and soon Spock could hear the low, steady catch of her purr; a big sound, he thought, for such a small body.

McCoy tucked the child in close and bent his head down, whispered something into her ear. His face was as soft as Spock had ever seen it, a gentleness, a wistfulness that to Spock was unfamiliar.

He wondered if the captain had seen this face before.

Leonard looked up. Their eyes caught over the child’s fuzzy head and McCoy’s were so strange, heavy with something Spock could not quite identify; affection, yes, but something else, too. Echoes of an old hurt, perhaps, of regret. But Spock found he could not turn away, did not want to, as Leonard’s eyes smiled at him, sad and lovely, for what seemed like a long, long time.

**You like me when I’m not talking, is that it? When I have sense enough to keep my mouth shut?**

_Given how rare such occasions are, that seems highly unlikely._

**Fair point.**

            _Though your behavior on that occasion--during much of the time that the Enniens were  
            onboard--was quite remarkable._

**I was covered in cat hair for two weeks, Spock. Hell, I’m still finding clumps of it in the lab, six months later. I’d say that’s pretty remarkable.**

Spock brings their eyes back to bear on the gymnasium again, on McCoy’s cheek resting on the child’s fluffy head.

            _The children liked you. You liked them. That is what was remarkable to me: how open_  
            you seemed with them, how kind. They knew that you cared for them, never doubted it  
            for a moment.

McCoy shifts a little, flushes under the words that feel like praise. 

**Little kids aren’t in Starfleet. You can’t treat ‘em like cadets. My dad tried that with us, growing up, and believe me, it didn’t take.**

_Your father was in Starfleet? I was not aware of that._

**There are a lot of things you don’t know about me. I’m not somebody who spills shit willy-nilly. You wanna know something, you’ve got to ask.**

            _Yes, I know. You told me that once before. Do you remember?_

The officers’ mess on the _Enterprise--_ it was crowded and noisy with chatter, alpha shift charging in for dinner, a few stragglers bound for beta shift with one last cup of coffee clenched in their fists. 

They were at their usual table, far enough away for their conversations to be somewhat private, but close enough for the captain to be visible, accessible to anyone that desired his ear.

“Office hours,” Kirk called them once, to McCoy’s great amusement. “It’s important for the crew to know they can talk to me, that I’m approachable. That I’m not some tin-plated god in a big chair who’s too busy for their bullshit.”

“You are too busy for their bullshit,” the doctor had said. “Hell, you’re too busy for your own, most days.”

To Spock, it had sounded like a reproach, but Kirk had just laughed and raised his glass in McCoy’s direction. “Aren’t we all, Bones,” he’d said. “Aren’t we all.”

This evening, however, there seemed little amiss. Kirk and McCoy were seated side-by-side across from Spock, and as they spoke, they crowded into each other’s space, their shoulders brushing, each eating from the other’s tray. Which was where their quarrel began.

“Bones,” the captain said, “take anything else off my plate and you’re gonna get a fork in the eye.”

McCoy made a face. “Did you hear that, Spock? Our glorious captain is threatening me over a few fried potatoes.”

Jim pointed his fork towards McCoy’s face. “Oh, I’m not threatening. That’s a promise.”

“Pfffft. Kid, you wouldn’t dare.”

There was a long, steady stare, and if Spock had not known them better, he would have thought them truly at odds.

But then Kirk waggled his eyebrows and made a ridiculous face and McCoy threw his head back and laughed, a warm, open sound that rang across the room. “Ok, ok,” he said. “Fine. Eat your own damn home fries, Jim. See if I care.”

Kirk’s face lit up in a grin. “You’re an ass,” he said, pressing a quick palm to McCoy’s cheek. “Anybody told you that?”

The doctor’s eyes darkened, his face flushed, and a spark caught between them. Spock could see it, now that he knew where to look.

“Lots of people,” McCoy said, nudging Jim’s hand away. “Three this morning, actually.”

Jim leaned back, tipped his chair on one leg. “Only three, huh? Tsk tsk. You’re slacking.”

Sometimes, seeing them like this roused something covetous inside him, something he knew to be jealousy. But sometimes, like now, he was hungry for it, the chance to watch them tease each other, watch them take pleasure in the other’s company--and to know that once the doors to Kirk’s cabin closed, they would do so with a different sort of fervor.

“Uh huh. Don’t you have some work to do, Captain? Somebody else to harass?”

“Nope,” Jim said, bright. “I’m all yours.” He dipped his head, swept Spock up in his smile. “And yours, of course, Mr. Spock.”

Spock felt his blood vessels swell, his face threaten to blush. Caught the responses in time to stop them, only just. “Thank you, Captain. Your presence is always appreciated.”

It sounded stiff and formal, even in his own ears: a fundamental truth whittled down to the barest of details, to the most socially appropriate and least telling response. He could feel McCoy’s attention on him, sharp and curious, but the captain’s expression, the warm press of his eyes, did not waver.

“As is yours,” Kirk said, softly. “I hope you know that.”

He nodded, tried to keep the gesture grave. “It seemed a logical assumption.”

The captain’s mouth twitched. “Anyway,” he said, folding his arms behind his head. “Spock, how was your day?”

Spock frowned. “Captain, given that we were on the bridge simultaneously, anything I have experienced today, you were a party to also.”

“Really?” Kirk tutted. “Nothing interesting happened to you before you came on duty?”

Spock felt a flare of irritation. He disliked conversations like these, even with Kirk, discussions that underscored the strange underground of inferences that littered Standard speech, inferences that demand responses he was usually unaware of, much less able to give. “Sir,” he said, “as you are well aware, we have been ‘on duty’ for nearly 24 hours, per Starfleet’s orders of stardate--" 

“Yeah, yeah,” Kirk interrupted. “All right. What I meant was: we may have experienced the same events today, you and me, but I was curious as to how you felt about them. Was it a good day, a bad day, or something in between?”

“C’mon, Jim,” McCoy said, in apparent empathy. “Leave the man be.”

“Captain,” Spock said, “that is an illogical question. Whatever emotional responses I may have experienced in response to in the context of today’s events are irrelevant. They are not germane to the ship’s function, or to mine.”

“Oh, no. No. That’s where you’re wrong. They’re very germane.”

“In what sense?”

“In the sense of: we’re friends, aren’t we?” Jim waved his hand around. “The three of us, I mean.”

Spock hesitated. “That has been my operating assumption for some time now, yes.”

Jim slapped the table. “There, you see? As my friend, how you feel about what happens to you--to us, to this ship--is _highly_ relevant. Dare I say, sometimes even more so than the events themselves.” His face split in a smile. “So when I say _how was your day,_ Spock, that’s what I’m getting at. That’s what I want to know.”

He had known this man, his captain, for almost four years, and still Kirk found ways to surprise him.

In Spock’s experience, so much in human relations seemed to be understood, intuited, rather than specifically expressed. Without the brutal, beautiful honesty of a mind meld, humans, like most other species, were forced to rely solely upon language to communicate that which was deeply felt. It was part of what had troubled his relationship with Nyota, he was certain: her need for words he could not master, could not say, could not assemble with the skill required to assure her of the nature of his affection, and by the time their minds had touched, in the midst of especially desperate sexual congress, it had been too late.

It was difficult, then, not to interpret the captain’s candor as an invitation, a gesture of friendship that expected its equal in kind.

But what he felt for Kirk was not friendship. Of that Spock was certain. Moments such as these, when Jim reached out a hand in comity, Spock found himself fighting the urge to take it for reasons far beyond friendship.

He kept his face, his voice, mild and said: “I shall keep that in mind, Jim.”

“You do that.” Kirk pitched his shoulder into McCoy’s. “You see how good he is at not answering my questions, Bones? Almost as good as you."

The doctor snorted. “Maybe you should learn something from that, huh?”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re a nosy bastard.”

“No, what’ve learned is that I’ve surrounded myself with tight-lipped jackasses, that’s what I’ve done.”

“You could always make it an order,” McCoy said, smirking. “If you’re really that fucking keen for an answer.”

“Give me a break, Len.”

“What? I’ve seen you use that gold shirt for less.”

“Doctor,” Spock interrupted, “how was your day?”

They stopped mid-bicker and stared at him, curious.

“What?” McCoy said.

“I merely wished to inquire, since we did not discuss it earlier: how was your day?”

A grin took over McCoy’s face, spread from his mouth to his eyes. “Why, thank you, Spock,” he drawled. “You’re the first person to take the time to ask after me in ages.”

Spock felt his mouth twitch. “Your other friends,” he said, “must be inexplicably rude." 

McCoy nodded. “Oh, and realllly self-involved, yeah.” 

“Hey!” Kirk said.

**He loves it when you yank his chain, Spock.**

_When I--?_

**When you tease him.**

_Does he?_

In the meld, the water is warm, the sun a blazing tower in the sky. The sand between them is awash with curiosity, arousal, amusement, and Spock cannot tell where his part of these feelings end and McCoy’s begins.

_Is he the only one?_

“It is a shame,” Spock said, “that Starfleet does not invest more of its instructional time to the politeness codes of various cultures.”

“You mean, it’s a shame they don’t teach their captains any damn manners? Yeah, it is.” McCoy caught Spock’s eye and Spock permitted himself a smile, a subtle turn of his lips that he allowed only the doctor to see.

Kirk shook his head, chuckling, his eyes moving back and forth between them.“I’ve got no chance between the two of you, have I? Can’t get away with a goddamn thing.”

_It seems he is fond of our collective efforts as well._

The sound of McCoy’s laughter falls over him, a benevolent wave.

**Yeah, you could say that.**

“Captain!” a voice boomed from the back of the room. “It’s the bridge, sir. Message from Admiral Flynn.”

“Crap,” Jim said, shoving his chair back. “That can’t be good.”

“She’s calling about that Gormley’s Planet thing, isn’t she?” McCoy said, watching the captain hurry towards the wall comm.

“Highly likely.”

McCoy grinned and stabbed a fork through the last of his chocolate cake. “You never did tell me what went on down there, exactly.”

“Surely you read the captain’s report.”

“Yep. And yours.” He gave Spock an eyebrow. “And I know you both well enough to know when you’re holding the good shit back.”

Spock allowed his lips the barest curve. “I am certain that I do not know what you mean, Doctor.”

“Uh huh,” McCoy said, his lips an echo of Spock’s. “The hell you don’t.”

“Let us say that it is highly likely the Admiral will have--questions about the captain’s solution.”

“Shit shit shit,” Jim said, flying back past the table. “She is _pissed_. I gotta take it in my quarters. Don’t wanna get bitched at in public.”

“I can send my full report on the Gormley’s incident to your terminal again, Captain, if that would be of use.”

Kirk’s face was the color of plomeek soup. “Um?” he said. “Thanks, Spock, but I’m just gonna go get this over with. I hope. God, do I hope.”

“Maybe this’ll be a lesson to him,” McCoy mused as the captain beat a hasty retreat. “Maybe next time he’ll follow orders and not fucking freelance where lines of succession are involved. Especially on a planet where everybody breathes fire.”

“An optimistic interpretation, Doctor.”

Leonard grinned. “Never let it be said that I’m all bad bourbon and rain clouds.”

There was a stretch of silence between them as McCoy finished his coffee, as Spock set his utensils on his tray. It was rare, such a moment between them. Rare for there to be any silence that Jim was not around to fill.

Spock found it surprisingly pleasant.

“Doctor?” he said, after a time.

“Hmmm?”

“I have noticed that you spend a high percentage of our conversations talking about the captain.”

“Do I?”

“Fully 67.6%, by my count.”

“Oh, by your count. Uh huh.”

“Even in circumstances when the context would make you yourself the more logical subject of your speech, your predilection is to reference him instead.”

Leonard made a face. “Ugh. Look, I’m not a big sharer, ok? Don’t really like talking about myself. I know what I sound like just fine. You wanna know something about me, you have to ask me, specific.” He set his elbows on the table and leaned his chin in his palm. “So. Is there something you’d like to know?”

Spock considered that. Sorted through the questions he wanted to ask and the ones he knew he should not. Settled on: “Why are you a doctor?”

“Huh,” McCoy said. “Well.” He sat back a little, looking surprised. “My, uh, my grandmother was a doctor. That’s part of it, I think. My mother’s mother. And I spent a lot of time with her when I was a kid. Went on rounds with her, visiting people’s houses with her, that kind of thing. She was the kind of doc who made house calls. She hated hospitals.” 

“And you enjoyed this time with her?”

“Not always. Sometimes it was a chore. But I loved her, you know? She was funny as hell. Never met a being she couldn’t charm, or cuss at, depending on the circumstances. Her patients thought she was manna from heaven.”

Spock said nothing. Watched the memories move across the doctor’s face, watched him decide which ones to give voice to.

“Now she and my momma, they were like two cats in a sack, most days. Didn’t agree on a damn thing, ever. And Gee--that’s what we called my grandmother--she hated my father with the heat of a thousand suns, from the moment she met him. Hated his goddamn guts.”

“Why?”

“She’d have said she could tell he was a bastard, even when he was on his best behavior, which is bullshit.” McCoy chuckled, a sound with no humor behind it. “My dad was a fucking great liar. But I think she did know that he and Mom were bad for each other, real bad, like oil and vinegar: they looked great together shaken up, but give them time and they’d drift apart, make each one uglier than they might’ve been.” He raised his eyebrows at Spock. “It was a good thing when they broke their marriage contract. A real, real good thing.”

“Ah,” Spock said. “You looked up to your grandmother because you could not admire your parents.”

Leonard blinked, his forehead folded in a frown. “I--I don’t think it’s that simple, Spock.”

Spock considered that. “Why did you spend so much time with her?”

“Because I hated being at home.”

“Yes." 

“Because she taught me how to swear.”

“I see.”

“Because I liked seeing her fix things, fix people. I liked knowing there was a way to make shit better, even when it was torn, really broken. I liked watching her heal what seemed like irreparable damage. So it only made sense to me to do that with my life, too.” He shook his head, rueful, and looked away. “Didn’t realize that those skills wouldn’t neatly translate into my everyday life, though. My life outside of medicine. Hence me being out here, a goddamn doctor in space. Jesus. If Gee could see me now.”

“She is dead, I assume?”

“Yeah. For a long time.”

“What do you think Gee would make of your choices?”

McCoy made a strange, choked sound. “Fuck, you really go for the jugular, don’t you?”

“Doctor, I--”

“No, no. It’s fine. I told you to be specific, right?” He turned back and Spock could see his eyes were red, tinged with wet. “I suspect she’d tell me in no uncertain terms to get my head out of my ass and be thankful that I’ve managed to stumble into a pretty good place, somehow, despite my own best efforts to fuck up my life. I mean, I’ve almost been horribly murdered half a dozen times by various dictators, madmen, and a certain blue-eyed yahoo who occupies the center seat, but you know, there are some good things around, too.” He smiled. “The yahoo has his moments, for instance. And you’re not so bad, most days.”

Spock was surprised, so surprised that a flush in his cheeks escaped his attention, allowing the heat to race up his cheeks and curl in the tips of his ears. “Oh. Thank you, Leonard.”

McCoy reached out and touched Spock’s hand. Just a brush, the barest touch, and yet it was a shock, like lightning kissing the ground: a surge of affection, nostalgia. “Hey, you’re welcome. Thank you for asking. I haven't talked about Gee in years. Thank the gods she’s not a ghost, or she’d sure as hell be haunting my ass for that lapse. That woman did not like to be ignored." 

“She and Jim would have had much in common.”

McCoy laughed, and he seemed like himself again, but more at ease, somehow. “Yeah, you could say that. What a pair those two would have made. Lord. She’d have tried to eat him for breakfast.”

“Eat him for--?”

The doctor waggled his eyebrows. “Her last partner was 30 years younger than she was, Spock. And she had a big thing for blue eyes. That’s all I’m gonna say.”

“You are suggesting that your grandmother would have attempted to marry the captain, if afforded the opportunity?”

McCoy stood, swept up his tray and Jim’s. “Hmm,” he said, “‘marry’ is not quite the verb I’d use there, but I’d say you’ve got the gist.” He gave Spock a big grin. “Thanks for the talk, Spock. Night.”

Spock inclined his head. “Good night, doctor.”

            _There came a time when I found I did not relish it, the image of you walking  
            away. The prospect of your absence. _

**I enjoy your company too, Spock.**

_I believe that is what I said._

He swept a hand through Leonard’s hair, windblown and salt-bitten by the sea.

            _Your soul is beautiful. Your kindness, your essence, the way you have chosen to live as  
            part of the universe--it is exquisite, Leonard._

McCoy shuddered, a sensation that flew out across the meld, the unfurling of great, heavy wings.

**Jesus.**

            _But there came a time, too, when I found a different beauty in you, and at first, I did not  
            understand it._

“Think they'll find us tonight?” McCoy asked.

They were on the shuttlecraft _Gagarin_ and the doctor was leaning against him. It was dark now, the bright spangle of stars endless but the light was unable to reach here, the dense dark space that felt smaller than Spock knew it to be.

It was a routine expedition. The captain had sulked--McCoy’s chosen adjective--as Spock and the doctor prepared.

“You should take security,” Kirk had said, yet again.

McCoy made an exasperated noise that Spock concurred with, even if he could not repeat it.

“Negative, Captain,” he said. “The fewer personnel present who might disturb the planet and the Kepei, the higher the likely accuracy of our findings. And the doctor and I are well versed in defense.”

Kirk made a face. “I should go--”

“No, you should take care of your damn ship and let us do our job,” McCoy said, spiteful, but the doctor turned back before they left, scooted off the hanger deck and into the corridor with Kirk and when he returned, his mouth was wet, his expression almost pleasant.

Yes, in theory, according to Spock’s calculations, the mission was simple: complete a routine observation of the Kepei, a small humanoid race the Doctor declared resembled trolls of Terran myth. Their planet was under First Contact quarantine, with only a brief, once-a-solar-year survey permitted. All they need do, then, was take standard readings on the Kepei, with a particular eye to their medical practices--”To see if they’ve actually bothered to develop any,” McCoy had said in the briefing, glaring at the viewscreen as if personally affronted that a pre-industrial society would have the gall not spend its efforts on healing--and a summary of the planet’s mineral composites.

It should have been quite simple. Two standard hours on the surface, at most.

Then the storm arrived, unexpected, and at first it seemed merely an annoyance, stranding the _Gagarin_ under screaming winds that felt strange in the face of the clear, cloudless sky.

The problem, as it ever was, lay with the doctor.

Which was why he was propped against the bulkhead, listing into Spock. The ankle had snapped when he turned to help Spock as they scrambled over the rocks, into the winds, fighting their way back to the shuttle. Spock had caught him as Leonard buckled, seen the agony bright across his face, and yet the doctor had resisted Spock’s care, fought the way Spock had tried to take his weight and carry him to the shuttle, even fought the medical care Spock offered, pushing him away with a stream of curses until Spock withdrew completely, stiff and angry. He had turned his attention to the shuttle and the sensors’ readings and the inevitable conclusion that they would be spending the night on the planet while the ion winds raged and the Kepei slept.

“As I suspected,” he said, raising his voice above the wind, “I cannot contact the ship. The storm has disrupted communications and our sensors. The navigation computer will be quite useless until it subsides. Rescue is also unlikely." 

“Unlikely, huh?” McCoy said through his teeth. “Don’t remember that ever stopping Jim before.”

“There is no question the captain will wish to make an attempt.”

Leonard laughed, the sound weird and thin. “You mean he's up there losing his mind.”

“He does not care to be separated from you. He will be worried.”

McCoy made a noise in this throat, sleepy and slurred with pain. “You too. Worries about you, too.”

He fell asleep soon after that, lulled by a hypo of painkillers, half folded into Spock’s lap, and Spock--

Spock sat in the darkness, the warmth of the doctor solid and comforting against him, and tried to sort through his emotions.

He had not expected the rush of fear he had experienced when he heard Leonard’s cry, when he had turned back to see McCoy’s leg buckling, the pain ripped on his face. Nor had he expected the wild kick in his side, the leap in his heart, as he saw McCoy fall, nor the rush to protect, to touch, to shield that screamed in his mind.

 _Leonard_ , his mind had cried, _no_ _not him not_

And it was not for Jim, this feeling, not on his behalf that Spock felt fear, thick and palpable in his throat, as he turned back, scurried over the rocks and reached for McCoy, swept him up in his arms.

It was not for Jim that he had murmured to Leonard as they moved through the storm, the doctor’s breath cold and ragged against Spock’s neck, his fingers curled weakly against Spock’s shoulder.

“Shhh,” Spock had said, whispers into the wind. “Leonard, I am here. Hold on to me. Trust me. I have you.”

It was not for Jim that Spock had done these things, had laid McCoy gently on the floor of the shuttle and smoothed the sand from his cheeks, his hair. Had let his hand linger on the doctor’s face longer than he should have.

No. It was for Leonard himself.

That alone was a revelation, exposing something within him he was unsure how to address.

He was less surprised, however, by the fury, the white hot anger that Leonard’s stubborn refusal to accept his assistance had inspired. Once they were safely inside, once he saw Spock holding hypos, felt Spock’s fingers pressing carefully at his ankle, he had fought Spock, come roaring back to life.

“Goddamn it,” he had said through gritted teeth, “give me the fucking hypo, Spock. I’m the doctor here.”

“You are injured,” Spock said, one hand on the doctor’s shoulder, holding, keeping him still. “I believe that makes you the patient.”

McCoy struggled, foolish, requiring more pressure, more patience.  “Fuck you very much,” he snarled.

There was a part of Spock, a very insistent part, that demanded he subdue that resistance. That he fight back, lay his whole weight upon the doctor’s body and hold him down, hold him still, until he was pliant and eager, waiting for Spock’s touch, arching into it, begging, his curses fading into something sweeter as he pleaded for more of Spock’s hands, for the hot press of his fingers and the sharp sting of his teeth, until he was bending willingly, joyfully, to Spock’s desire, his strength.

Instead, Spock had snapped “Be still!” and shoved the hypo against McCoy’s neck, held it there until he felt it catch, until he felt Leonard take a deep, angry breath and then at last relax.

Now, as the doctor slept beside him, he found that he wanted to argue with him again, wanted to demand Leonard’s capitulation, wanted to silence his tongue with a kiss that drove all thought from his illogical head.

His breath shuddered free of him and he looked down at the man beside him, the man he wanted--oh, how he wanted Leonard, wanted to fight and and fuck and fill with pleasure, with echoes of Spock’s own name.

_Oh ashayam, what have you done to me._

He lets it rush up through the meld, what he feels for Leonard, what he has come to accept. All of it.

            _You wished to know, did you not?_

**Gods, I had no idea, Spock.**

            _You never asked._

There is lust, yes, and great affection; bemusement and ever-present frustration. There is appreciation and admiration and a heat that feeds upon itself when their eyes meet, when they cross swords, when they are both teasing Jim.  
  
            _You see so much, Leonard, but not Jim's affections for you. Nor did you see mine. Are_  
_you so convinced of your own paucity? Are you so unsure of your worth?_  

McCoy turns their fingers in the soft mud and Spock realizes their hands are still joined, intertwined in a deeply sensual way.

 **That’s a hell of a leap.**  

_And yet, I suspect, not an inaccurate one._

**My personal life’s always been a goddamn mess. I mean, you know I signed up for this space rodeo because of my divorce, right?**

            _You have said as much, yes._

**My ex, she did a lot of damage before she walked away. Before I had the sense to let her go.**

There is the sketch of someone on the edge of the meld, a woman whose face Spock cannot see. The harder he looks, the more McCoy resists him, turns his face, their eyes away. Fear in the air, in the sand between them. The colors of pain and of shame. Len’s fingers in his shift, pulling away and Spock makes a dissatisfied noise, tries to tighten his grip.

**I don’t need to see her to remember what happened between us. What she left me with. Almost none of it was good: ashes in my pockets, a bitter pill in my mouth and no water to swallow.**

The driftwood, the rocks, the trees, they suddenly echo with the sound of a child’s voice. For an instant, Spock can feel the press of small hands on Leonard’s, the weight of her on his chest as she sleeps, the smell of her, baby new.

 **The baby was the best of us. She is. Joanna.**  

_Your daughter?_

**Yeah. She’s--**

A swell of grief, of affection, regret, and in McCoy’s eyes, in his mind, the same emotions Spock has seen there before, as Leonard held Blackstreak.

**She’s gonna be eight this year. Eight. You believe that? I can’t. She’s not a baby anymore.**

            _Leonard--_

McCoy looks away, sends his gaze up into the sunlight.

**No. Not right now, Spock, ok? Please. I can’t--not about that.**

            _Of course. My apologies_.

The sand moves, restless, and Spock senses that McCoy has moved them back to safer territory.

**We were, ah. We were talking about my ex.**

_Yes. She is why you do not believe I could want you. Why you doubted Jim._

**She didn’t exactly inspire confidence, no.**

_Foolish._

**Joss? No. Cruel, sometimes, even more stubborn than me, but she’s smart as hell, Spock. Sharp. We were just a terrible match in every way that actually matters.**  

Spock shakes his head and tugs lightly on their joined hands.

 _Only a fool would hurt you thus, Leonard, would move out of your life, if given the chance  
            to claim you as their own._  

**Damn it, man.**

McCoy turns back, looks into Spock’s face. The waves chase each other up the shore, lick thick at the hem of Spock’s robes, at the edge of McCoy’s bare feet, and Spock can feel it, the pleasant weight of emotions that McCoy cannot yet express. The sun burns high overhead, pressing its heat into their shoulders, and it is well. Spock is content to wait. 

McCoy reaches for his hand, squeezes Spock’s fingers, at last, and takes a deep breath.

**You make it hard to dislike you, Spock. You always have.**

              _I am not sure what you mean by that._

**Heh. Well. It started with your hands.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Enniens (if not their precise backstory) are borrowed with love from Janet Kagan's brilliant Trek novel _Uhura's Song_. It is, as my name might suggest, dear to my heart. ~ Catchclaw


	11. Chapter 11

The day had been quiet. Hell, almost somber, compared to the frenzied rush of the past few.

Nero was dead and the ship was Jim’s, for now. At least until the Fleet dug its way out of the shitshow a time-traveling Romulan pirate had created by destroying the heart of the Federation and yeah, McCoy figured. It could take awhile.

Half the crew was still high on it, the whole not-dying-saving-the-day thing and the other half was still sleeping off their near-death experience. Or their attempts to manage it via alcohol.

So, yeah. It was quiet. 

They were on their way to Starbase 3 to get their new warp core tuned up, a slow, two-week jaunt on impulse. Kirk had been in one of the briefing rooms all day, Uhura at his side, fielding the dozens of media requests that Admiral Flynn had seen fit to push through. Everybody wanted a piece of James T. and McCoy couldn’t blame Starfleet for obliging. They needed some good news out on the airwaves right now.

Heads were gonna roll over Vulcan, for sure, and McCoy was happy to be well out of the way.

Speaking of.

He’d looked everywhere for Spock, everywhere he could think of, and the damn fool seemed to have disappeared.

Kirk had kicked him off the duty roster for three days, despite Spock’s protestations.

“Medical leave,” Kirk said, pointing. “This is not negotiable.”

“I was unaware of your medical credentials, captain,” Spock said, with that carefully controlled vitriol that seemed to be all his own. “Congratulations.”

Kirk made a face. “Not helping your case, Spock.”

“Certified by me,” McCoy said. “I wanted a week. Jim’s the one who talked me down to three days.”

The captain stood up, pushed away from his desk. Made it clear the discussion was over. “Three days off duty, Spock, starting now.”

Something passed over Spock’s face, and for a moment, he looked stricken. Then he stiffened again, his expression going stone. “Sir,” he said, formal, turned on his heel, and left.

“He needs this,” Kirk had said after Spock left. “Right? Everybody needs time to grieve.”

“Yeah, of course,” McCoy had said then, “he’s just gotta be stubborn about it, like every other damn thing.”

But now he wasn’t so sure. Maybe isolation, seclusion were the last things that Spock needed. More time to think, more time to wonder, more time to see his planet die, his mother, over and over again.

So Leonard went looking, determined, finally found him in a small observatory, one of the rooms nobody had had occasion to use yet, not really. It looked like everything in there had just come out of the package: no fingerprints, no dust, only the scent of flowers in blooms, a uncluttered view of the stars streaking over them, across the open viewfinder.

“Spock?” McCoy said, standing in the doorway, not quite allowing himself to enter. “It’s just me. You ok?”

Spock was kneeling in the center of the room, his long, dark robes pooled at his feet, so still he didn’t seem to be breathing, and his face--

His face was raw with anguish, grief and guilt and fury written in the lines, the dark circles under his eyes, the way his lids were shut so tight they trembled.

Leonard stepped inside, heard the door sigh shut behind him.  
  
Outside of this room, the entire galaxy was still celebrating the destruction of Nero, cheering the name of the captain and crew who had saved Earth, relief filling up the holofeeds on every planet in the Federation.

Except here, where a Vulcan knelt in silence and grieved, hidden from any curious eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Leonard said, his voice loud in all that quiet. “I didn’t mean to disturb you, I was just--” The words petered out. “I guess I was worried, that’s all.”

Spock opened his eyes. And if Leonard had thought his face was sad--seeing his eyes, those bright, brilliantly alive eyes, that made him ache. So much pain, all the more acute for having been unspoken.

Something pushed at Leonard’s tongue; more words, ones that he hadn’t known he needed to say. “Spock,” he said. “I grieve with thee.”

Spock’s face softened, the pain abated for one breath, then two. “Thank you, doctor.” He laid a hand on the floor beside him. “Would you care to join me? I know humans do not meditate in times of grief, as we do, but perhaps you would welcome silence, for a time.”

Leonard found himself crossing the room, found his legs folded beneath him, found himself staring at Spock’s hands, now steepled again under his chin. Elegant hands. Capable. Instruments of force, wrapped around Kirk’s neck. Of intuition, finding their way across the controls of his future self’s ship. Of gentleness, cupping the elbow of a Vulcan elder as he guided her down the corridor and on Uhura, steadying her as she stumbled, exhausted, from the bridge.

Beautiful hands, he thought.

They sat together in that forgotten room on the _Enterprise_ and the quiet didn’t seem so loud to him there, seated at Spock’s side.

_I found comfort in your company that day, too, doctor._

The image again of Spock’s fingers, steepled under his chin.

**I have a thing about hands, Spock. Always have. I gage people by them, a carryover from med school, I guess. You always judge a surgeon by their hands; read their skill and competence there, measure it against their bravado. Surgeons, they can talk a good game, but their hands, they never lie.**

He adores Kirk’s hands. They're quick and clever and when they touch him, Len forgets everything but the way they press love and heat and _want_ into his skin. Kirk touched everyone, light and lingering and soft and hard--he was one of the most tactile people Len knew and every touch _meant_ something. Which made the ones he gave McCoy in the quiet of his quarters, the ones that pulled broken needy noises from him, all the more treasured.

**It was his hands I was watching, when I started really trying to read yours.**

They were in the briefing room near the bridge, crowded around the table like cats after cream. Uhura was detailing their mission and Kirk was listening, his hands twitching with excess energy, as always, the twelve-year old tell in a grown man’s body. It made McCoy smile. No matter how much braid they slapped on the kid, no matter what they gave him to command, there was still that eager, jumpy boy inside, somewhere.

But then, Spock’s hand moved, too.

Not jerky like Jim’s but pointed, deliberate, and Leonard’s breath caught, snagged on the barely there brush of slender fingers over the back of Kirk’s hand, watched the way it derailed the jumpiness, smoothed over the edges and settled Kirk, whole. It was a light touch, fleeting, so quick he doubted anyone else had noticed.

It wasn’t erotic, not at all, and yet it jolted him, watching Spock touch Jim like that, watching Jim accept it, respond to it so naturally.

It wasn’t erotic except it was, because Kirk’s hands were nothing if not instruments of pleasure and Spock’s were, well--

Spock was strength and grace and reserve, his long elegant fingers quick and capable whatever he was doing. In the years they’d served together, Leonard had watched those hands work gentle on a fragile experiment, curl to cup an alien flower on Thalos V, fly across his console while Kirk barked orders, hold Kirk up on a transporter pad. He had seen them slick with blood and darting expressive in the air as he explained some complicated idea. He'd seen them pinning Kirk on the mat while they sparred and clenched in helpless fury when Kirk was hurt.

But he hadn't seen Spock’s hands wrapped around his cock, had he, stroking Leonard slow while Kirk murmured dirty encouragement. He hadn't seen those long slender fingers pushing into Jim, spreading him, fingering him open while Jim begged breathless to be fucked.

He hadn't seen those hands twisted in his bedsheets, no, hadn’t seen them curled in need and want and longing. He hadn't tasted them or watched the Vulcan come apart while he did. He hadn't felt them painting desire across his skin, claiming him, blunt nails in his flesh as Spock-

“Spock and Bones will go down with a small security contingency.”

Leonard blinked. Looked up to catch Kirk’s eyebrow, his pointed _quit daydreaming_ stare.

He gave up a scowl in response. “Why the hell do you need me down there?”

“As Lieutenant Uhura has explained in some detail,” Spock said, tapping at his PADD, “the Nrauniams are a medically advanced culture. They revere physicians. No matter how dubious their qualifications.”

Kirk snorted and McCoy shook his head, sighed. “Fine. When should my unqualified ass be ready to transport down, sir?”

“In three hours,” Kirk said, but McCoy barely heard him because Spock was on his feet, straightening his uniform with a prim tug, his hands tucked around the hem, smoothing it over his waist. It was a gesture McCoy had seen a thousand times, had even mocked once or twice, but now it inspired a rush of want, of weird, pointless desire.

What the hell, he thought, then.

Spock’s amusement ripples through the meld.

_My hands, they flummoxed you, doctor? Had I known it was so easy to distract you, I  
            might have done so long ago._

**You wanna know this or not, Spock?**

On the beach, Spock is smiling.

            _Pray, Leonard. Continue_.

**So. Jim asked me a question.**

Kirk’s face in the sky again, his voice lovely, uncertain. “Would you--how would you feel about--I mean, If we could ask Spock to be part of this, what we have, would you want that?”

            _I remember._

 **You wanna know how I answered?**  
  
_Yes. Very much._


	12. Chapter 12

McCoy takes a breath, and then two, and they are in Kirk’s quarters again, he and Jim wound together in his bed.

“It’s both of us or none of us, Len. We’re a package deal.” Kirk pitched their foreheads together, let his voice drift to a whisper. “Whatever you think of Spock, you have to know he’d respect that, if we asked him to.”

“Yeah,” McCoy said. “I know.”

Jim kissed him with the sort of soft, intractable certainty that made him _him_ , that strung all his parts--the captain, the miscreant, the daring, beautiful boy--into one singular whole. He was a mystery, a foundation, a sign of what McCoy’s life had become, what it could be, and there was no one he’d ever wanted more, ever trusted, ever loved so goddamn completely.

It didn’t scare him anymore, all the shit Jim kicked up in his head, all the ways, still new, still strange, that he made Leonard feel.

He thought of their first kiss, of the sweet shock of Jim in his arms, the goosebumps that had bloomed on the kid’s back as their tongues touched, the hungry hitch of his breath. The eagerness in him then, the joy, and fuck, what a leap of faith that had been, Jim showing his hand like that. Trusting his gut instinct that McCoy wouldn’t push him away. He’d done what Leonard had wanted to, had been too chicken shit to attempt, and hell: maybe Leonard didn’t know how Spock felt about him, or how Spock would react to Jim’s offer, but Jim seemed pretty damn sure.

If there was anyone’s instinct to trust in these matters, matters of the heart and the bed, surely it was Jim Kirk’s.

“Yeah,” McCoy said, shoving the word between kisses. “Jim. Yes.”

Kirk shifted, threw his leg over McCoy’s hips and straddled him, his mouth hot and insistent. “Yes what?”

“To Spock. You should ask him.”

Jim froze. “Really?”

“Uh huh.”

“You sure?”

Leonard dragged a hand down Kirk’s side, caught his hip. “Mmmm. You know what I was thinking about this morning, in the ‘lift?”

Jim shivered, his cock hot against McCoy’s belly. “No. What?”

“I was thinking about him kissing you.”

“Funny,” Jim said. “I’ve been thinking about him riding you.”

McCoy’s hips jerked. “ _Fuck._ ”

Kirk laughed, poured it over McCoy’s chin. “Oh, you like that idea, huh?”

“Depends,” Leonard said. “Where were you?”

“Hmmm?” Kirk said. He rocked against McCoy, his mouth moving down McCoy’s throat. “What do you mean?”

“You said he was riding me, in your head. So where were you in this little scenario?”

“I was behind him.”

“Behind?”

“You were on your back,” Kirk said, dreamy, his voice like blue smoke, “and he was on top of you, his hands sunk down in the sheets, and I was behind him, holding onto him, holding him up, his back against my chest.”

McCoy dug his nails in the base of Jim’s spine. “Oh?”

“Uh huh. And you were looking at us, _oh_ , up at us, I mean, Spock riding you real slow and me kissing him, holding his hips down and kissing his neck while you fucked him.”

McCoy bit off a growl. “No.”

A whisper. “No?”

“Don’t hold his hips down. I’ve got ‘em. He’s not going anywhere, honey. We’re not gonna let him.”

“ _Shit."_

“Touch him, Jim. His belly, his arms. Hmmm? His chest. Come on. I want to see your hands on his skin.”

“Len, jesus--sit up. Come on. I wanna see you.”

He leaned back and McCoy pushed himself up, put his back to the bulkhead and reached for Jim, pulled him back into his lap. Kirk wound his arms around Leonard’s neck and McCoy pulled at his hips, tugged them into a rhythm, a roll.

“Pinch his nipples, sweetheart,” Leonard murmured. “I bet he’d like that.”

Jim shuddered, stretched his hands down McCoy’s chest. “Yeah, he does.” He caught Leonard’s nipples, fast. “Mmmm. You’re right. You feel it, the way he squeezes you when I do that?”

Leonard groaned. “Gods, he’s tight. Makes him so tight around my cock, you touching him like that.”

Kirk squirmed, his dick hot and full as it brushed against McCoy’s. “Fuck, he’s loud, isn’t he? You wouldn’t think that he would be, but god, Len, he’s so goddamn loud. Even when I kiss him, you hear much noise he’s making?”

McCoy’s skin was on fire, his hands, his fingers slipping over Kirk’s back, his ass. “Because you’re making him feel good, honey. So fucking good. He wants you to know that.”

“And you,” Kirk murmured, the words wet over McCoy’s mouth. “You are, too. We’re doing that, Bones. You and me.”

He kissed Leonard, fervent and frantic, and McCoy got a hand in his hair, held him there, sucked on that beautiful tongue.

Kirk broke away with a gorgeous, aching moan. “Spock’s shaking now. You should feel how hot his skin is. Can you feel it?”

“Yeah. And you haven’t even touched his cock yet, have you, baby?”

Jim threw his head back with a whine. “No, no, I--”

“I think you should do that,” McCoy said. He caught Kirk’s neck with one hand, reached for his cock with the other. “Get a hand on him.”

“Oh,” Jim said, fucking breathless into McCoy’s fist. “Oh fuck.”

“You feel how hard he is? How hard we’ve made him, huh. How wet his pretty cock is. Look, he’s leaking all over your fingers. You can hardly hold on to him, can you?”

Jim braced his hands on the bulkhead, his palms pressed to the wall behind McCoy’s head, his face flushed, his eyes feral bright. “Because he’s riding you faster. He’s fucking bouncing on your cock, isn’t he?” Leonard groaned and Kirk laughed, worked his hips faster. “Harder, too. Oh, he likes it. He wants you inside him.” Kirk dropped his head, his mouth hot against McCoy’s ear. “He wants you to fuck him, Len. Come on. Give it to him.”

Leonard’s body arched and it was all he could do not to shove Jim off of him, to put him on his back and get him open, get him wet, get him full. “I am. I _am_ , baby. Fuck, he’s so--”

“You’re holding his hands now,” Kirk whispered. “Tight. Your hands, wound together. You’re helping me hold him up.”

“Yeah," McCoy said, his hand moving faster, speeding up to meet Kirk’s thrusts.

Kirk’s head fell back, a dark little noise in his throat. “He wants to kiss you, Len. So bad. He wants you. He keeps saying it, do you hear?”

“I can hear him.”

“But he can’t yet,” Kirk said, fierce, his eyes snapping back to find McCoy’s. “He can’t. I want him to come first.”

“Jim. _Jim_.”

Kirk shoved a hand between them and captured Leonard’s cock, started pulling, long and steady. “Wanna feel him burn my fingers,” he said, gleaming at McCoy, a blue fury. “I wanna watch him cover your belly. Wanna see your face when he does.”

“Fuck,” McCoy spat, his knuckles bumping Kirk’s as he met him stroke for fevered stroke. Jim was wet, just a little, just enough to let McCoy know that--

“He’s close, honey,” Leonard said. “He’s so close.”

“Yeah?”

“Fuck yes. I can feel it. “

Kirk bowed his back, gasping. “You can, huh?”

“Yeah. He’s got his head tipped on your shoulder and you’re jerking his dick so good, just the way he wants it, the way he’s telling you to.”

Jim’s hand went tight on McCoy’s cock, tighter, his own swelling sweet in McCoy’s fist. “Oh. _Oh_ , gods.”

“Turn your face, baby,” Leonard said. “He wants you to kiss him, wants your mouth on him when he comes.”

Kirk’s eyes fluttered and he fell forward, his whole body straining for McCoy, for his touch. “Shit. Shit, Len, fuck, I’m gonna--”

“C’mon, honey, watch. Open your eyes for me.“

“I--”

“Watch us make him come.”

Jim bent his head just as the first heat hit Leonard’s fingers, his chest, and the noise Kirk made, watching himself come in quick spurts over McCoy’s skin, it was _Jim_ , pared down to his essence, a moment of perfect excess, of pleasure, of love, and the meld sings with it, the sea and the sky and the sun all in tune.

McCoy can hear it echoing in Spock’s body, his blood, a hundred notes that sound in their shared thoughts, discordant and lovely.

            _You would share yourself with me? Yourself and the man you adore. This is something you want?_

**_Yes._ **

Spock’s hands catch his face, his palms pressed hot against Leonard’s skin, the eddies of emotion meeting in his eyes, pooling there, warm and deep.

            _Leonard. Have you noticed the light?_

**The light?**

_The sun. How it has sunk to meet us, how even now it lingers at our shoulders, curious.  
            Do you feel its life, doctor? It is the captain. It is Jim, the spark that is him._

The heat nudges McCoy’s back like two fingers, familiar, drawing their way down his spine.

**Jim?**

Spock smiles, full and lovely.

            _He has found us. We have drawn him to us, though he is still not yet free._

**But how did he--? I thought it was just you and me here.**

For a moment, he’s outside of the meld, aware of his body for the first time in minutes? hours? and he can see his hand on the coverlet, can feel it clutching Jim’s, can see Spock’s hand spread over them both.

            _You see? He is here. We have lured him away from the pain. He is nearly ours again,  
            but he is not--_

His mouth before Leonard’s. Close. He is so very close. Beside the bed, in the cabin, and here in their minds, in the wet sand.

            _Do you trust me?_

McCoy finds the edge of Spock’s robe, the fabric soaked in seawater, in mud.

**You gotta know that I do.**

_Then follow me_ , Spock says, turning the words over McCoy’s lips. _Follow._


	13. Chapter 13

And then they are falling, they have fallen, they are

They are

They are in the cabin on Evaline, the one their bodies have never left, but here, inside their minds, the room itself has changed. Here, the fire is roaring, its embers tempted alight, and the bed is empty, the linens neat and unsoiled. Beyond it lies only a blur.

Spock is seated in the armchair by the hearth, his robes dry, his hands clean, and McCoy is settled astride him, his knees on either side of Spock’s hips, those slim, strong hands on his waist, his own tangled in the collar of Spock’s robes.

“Leonard,” Spock says. “Look at me.”

There are shadows and firelight and for a moment, what Leonard sees in Spock’s face is a memory, fleeting:

Jim riding him in this chair--was it only last night?-- his motions jerky and desperate, a whine in his throat, his teeth pressed against McCoy’s palm, muffling the noises Leonard dragged from him, teased from his mouth as they fucked: “Shh, honey, you’ll wake up Spock, oh, you want that, don’t you, want him to see how sweet you look when you’re taking my cock,” hot wet heat spilling between them, the roar of Jim’s breath as Leonard made him feel good, it’s so good, always.

“Why do you suppose I chose this, Leonard?”

McCoy jolts, surprised, his eyes wide and Spock’s hands dig in, hold him still. Hold him close. That damnable smile on his face, loving, knowing.

“You are not so quiet as you suppose,” Spock says. “And neither is our captain.”

His fingers are eager vines in Leonard’s hair, pulling him down, holding him fast, and then he’s kissing Leonard, open-mouthed and determined, and gods it’s hot, that kiss, like a brand that burns down to his bones.

“You thought it would be different,” Spock murmurs, his voice liquid heat. “You and Jim, you thought you would take what you wanted from me. That I would simply let you have you me.”

“Want to give you so much, too. You know that. Not just--”

Spock bites him--sharp, quick on his neck. “It wasn’t yours to take, _ashayam._ Can you understand this?” He licks across the bite, the bruise. “I will give of myself, gladly, but you may not take.”

A groan, an awful, beautiful noise that tumbles from McCoy’s mouth, rings off the walls, bounces out of the fire and peels back over his skin.

“Jim,” he pants. “What about Jim? Spock, you said--”

_Trust me._

Spock’s palms slide under his shirt, over his back.

            _Trust me, beloved. He is here. He will come._

He digs in his nails and Leonard’s hips kick, and he _wants_ , oh fuck, does he want. He twists his head, seeking Spock’s mouth, and Spock hums, turns his face away. 

“Kiss me,” McCoy says, the words thready in his teeth. “Damn it, let me kiss you.”

Spock grabs Leonard’s hair and yanks his head back hard, licks at the long curve of his throat. There’s the sound of fabric tearing, a flash of Leonard’s shirt balled in Spock’s fist, and McCoy’s shaking now, as Spock drags his mouth down the curve of his shoulder, just to hear

To hear

Spock hears

the noise McCoy makes, the sweet call of frustration. Leonard is hard in his jeans, the weight of him pressing against Spock’s stomach, and to Spock, his exasperation is desperate, divine.

“You must ask,” Spock whispers, hot breath over cool skin. “Just as you required of Jim.”

“What?”

_”Why don’t you ask me nicely?”_

_“N-nicely?”_

_McCoy chuckled. “Say please.”_

_“What?”_

_He traced the edge of Jim’s lips with the tip of his tongue, slow, Kirk making low, sweet sounds in its wake.  
            “I said--Say. Please.”_

“Oh, gods,” Leonard hisses, rocking into Spock’s lap. “Gods, Spock. You bastard.”

Spock laughs, a little thing he drowns in McCoy’s ear, and strokes Leonard’s back, his ass, feels the tremors in McCoy’s body, the way they echo in his cock.

But still, he does not kiss him.

“My instructions were very clear,” Spock says. “Your own intransigence is the sole cause of your frustration.”

“My own--!” McCoy snarls, or tries to, but there is no thunder behind it, only thwarted desire, and beside them, the fire quakes, the flames flaring.

“Yield to the logic of the situation,” Spock whispers. “You need only ask, Leonard, to receive what we both want.”

McCoy’s hands scrabble over Spock’s chest, find the clasp and break open his robe. “Please,” he spits, spreading hungry palms over Spock’s skin, “please, Spock. Kiss me. Gods, come on, kiss me, _please_.”

Spock finds himself helpless before it, those words, McCoy’s desperation, and there is no art to this kiss, no gentleness; it is all filth, rough and noisy and wet. McCoy’s tongue is fierce, his teeth plucking green from Spock’s lip, and Spock is so hot he cannot see, cannot reason, cannot reach beyond this moment. For a long, beautiful breath, he knows only Leonard and the dust storms of want that have raged between them for so long; here they settle, come together, combine into something powerful and lovely and strong.

            _The light_ , something in him says, murmurs. _We must look to the light_. 

“Leonard,” he says, when he remembers how to speak again. “I want to see all of you. Let us make use of the bed.”

He nudges the doctor from his lap and watches Leonard kick off his boots, peel out of his jeans, and only when he is naked does Spock rise and open his robes, push Leonard back into the sheets, sweet skin against skin.

**Different sheets?**

Black now, and silken, not the rough cotton they had laid the captain in so carefully.

_The light. The light_

**The light** , McCoy repeats to himself. **The light**.

But it doesn’t matter what the hell color the sheets are because Spock is here, pitched over him, those damned robes still hanging from his shoulders, the heavy folds kissing Leonard’s cock, his legs, his thighs. He tugs at the collar, smooths his hands over Spock’s sleeves. “This’d be more fun if you’d take these off.”

Spock’s eyes flutter. “Hmmmm. More fun for whom?” He shifts like a cat, slides down Leonard’s body, and settles between his knees, that gorgeous mouth hovering over his cock, open and hot and not quite touching. Not.

“Oh, fuck,” Leonard gets out, reaching for that dark hair, spearing his fingers through it, trying to pull. “Spock, _jesus_. You look--”

But Spock is stronger, shakes McCoy off like a leaf. “Be quiet, Leonard,” he says as he moves his mouth away and before McCoy can fuss there’s a finger rubbing over his entrance, yes there is, pressing in, and he hisses, twists his hips, pushes himself against Spock’s hand.

Spock gives up a small, pleased sound, kisses the inside of McCoy’s knee. “I thought that you would like this.” He strokes Leonard again, gentle, his eyes sweeping McCoy’s face. “You are beautiful in pleasure, Leonard. I was certain you would be.”

McCoy has to turn away, has to turn his cries to the fire as Spock touches him with such care, such intensity, that it makes something inside of him crumble, way down in the deep.

            **_Oh,_** the fire says. **_There you are._**

Then the strokes stop--

“Spock?”

\--and when he looks back, Spock is sucking on his fingers, eyes blown out and wide.

“C’mere,”  McCoy says, reaching. “Lemme do that.”

He sits up a little and catches Spock’s wrist, and this time, Spock allows himself be moved, lets McCoy draw his hand up and lick at those long fingers slow, his face go lazy with hunger and need and _gods_ that’s hot, with the way he looks like he wants to take Leonard to pieces, one by one, the way he’s working himself against the sheets, an eager movement that he can’t seem to control.

He follows the line of his fingers and crawls up McCoy’s body, draws them out, feeds Leonard his tongue in their stead, swallows Leonard’s groans as he reaches down and pushes a finger inside him, a long smooth thrust.

“Gods,” Leonard gasps, when Spock lets him breathe again, “those fingers of yours.”

“You said that you liked them, did you not?” Spock says, the smooth flat gravel a little shaky, beautifully out of breath.

“Like is a word for it, yeah.” A stroke, good down and inside, and McCoy gasps, wonders if this is how Jim feels when Leonard plays with him in bed, unfolds the pleasant map of his body until he can’t breathe, can only moan Leonard’s name.

Spock works in another finger, spreading him open, and it stings a little, a blunt unfamiliar stretch. It must show in his face, in his thoughts, for Spock hushes him, murmurs: “Let me, Leonard. Let me--” and eases in again, hooks his fingers just right and goddamn, does Leonard _sing_.

And so loud is the song, so complete the pleasure, that McCoy barely catches it, a whisper of something new in the meld, a faint voice, warm and sure:

            **_Always wanted to take you there, always wanted you to see it_**

But Spock is closer, the sound of his thoughts louder, his touch--

“Perfect,” McCoy grits out, leaning into Spock’s fingers. “Don’t stop. Just like that, baby. Don’t stop.”

There is a long, lovely time when all he knows is Spock: the hot slide of his fingers, whisper of his kisses, the way his skin hums under Leonard’s palms, even through his robe. He can hear his own voice, somewhere, half words that fall out of his lips, muddled by sounds of pleasure, until:

“Want you in me,” he says at last, somewhere between a groan and a sigh.

Spock growls, a rough lovely sound, and his fingers twist, shove in harder. “You would let me have you?”

McCoy laughs, or tries to, the air long gone from his lungs, and rocks down against Spock’s hand again, defiant, insistent. “You have me already, Spock. Surely you can see that by now.”

Their cocks brush and Spock shudders, presses himself hot and wet against McCoy’s thigh. His slick is everywhere, Leonard can smell it, can feel it chasing over his belly, on Spock’s, and he cries out, smears his words between their mouths. “Please,” he says. “Want you in me. Come on, fuck me. Please.”

Spock nods, a sharp jerky thing, slips his hand free and--

_**This hotel on Alpha Centauri, in the capital, it’s got rooms with gold-papered walls**_  
_**and big windows that look out over the ocean. Always wanted to take you there,**_  
_**always wanted you to see it.**_

\--pushes into him, too big and too hot and so goddamn right he can’t even curse, can’t do anything but dig his nails into that damn Vulcan robe and lift his hips, roll them in tight little circles as Spock fills him, steady and slow, and there’s this _noise_ , low and broken, a hiccuping sound that keeps breaking the silence. It takes Spock breathing his name and kissing him, deep and soft and hungry, for Leonard to realize that the noise is coming from him.

“Like this?” Spock says, quiet. “Is this what you would have me do?”

He’s barely moving, still inside him and still. Waiting.

Waiting for--?

**_There’s so much light--the rooms are full of it, day and night in the summer. It’s so_ ** **_  
_ ** **_bright there, so much better than the dark_ **

Leonard claws at Spock’s neck, shoves himself up. “I want you to fuck me,” he says, his voice thin and tense. “Pretty sure I was damn clear about that.“

Spock smiles, this little turn of his lips. “I am, _ashayam_. Do you not feel me inside you?”

“You--you’re a--”

“What?” Spock says. His mouth drifts down McCoy’s chin, under the curve of his jaw. “What am I?”

“A tease,” Leonard breathes, all air, no heat. “A fucking tease. Gods, of course you are.”

Teeth on his ear, a fierce tug. “You enjoy being frustrated.” McCoy swallows a moan, almost, and Spock chuckles, gives up a quick thrust. “It does no good to deny it.”

Leonard arches his back, presses his body up. “I’m not, I’m not denying a goddam fucking--”

There’s a sigh, a sound that seems drawn from Spock’s heart, from the bottom of his soul, and he shoves, his weight a weapon, his cock a sweet dagger. “Be still. Take what I am willing to give you.”

McCoy gets a hand in Spock’s hair, gets in a good snarl. “Is this what you want, Spock? To have me twisting in the wind while you try my fucking patience?”

“ _Yes_.” The word spit, his hips drawing back faster, thrusting sure and deep, Leonard’s cock trapped hard and helpless between them and fuck, Spock is a flame, like a blowtorch, his skin stinging Leonard’s flesh. His robes are gone now, the folds of sunlight on sand cast away past the edges of the bed, and there is this, only them, only this.

**_Not alone anymore, am I? You’re here._ **

“I think if anybody’s impatient here,” McCoy gets out, “it’s you. Look at you. You’re gonna lose it already, aren’t you?”

“Oh no. No, we have barely begun, I--”

**_Leaving me out of it, though? That’s not fair._ **

Leonard squeezes him, kicks his knees into Spock’s sides and holds on. “It’s not like you thought, is it? Hmmm? You thought I’d get one look at that gorgeous cock and come all over myself so you could do whatever you damn well pleased.”

A snort, a bitten-off laugh. “That is not accurate.”

“Uh huh.”

“It was a possibility I considered, but I had hoped it would not be the case.”

**_God, you two. Look at you._ **

McCoy twists in his grip, beneath his body, his fingers slipping in the sweat of Spock’s shoulders. “Yeah?”  
  
Spock makes that noise again, like he’s swallowed a lion, and shoves back, flattens Len in the sheets. “Yes,” he says, catching Leonard’s wrists, twisting their fingers together. “I much prefer this. A meeting of equals.” 

“Is that what we are, Spock?”

Spock smiles, a curve echoed in his body, the turn of his hips. “Oh, yes, Leonard. You are my equal and I am your opposite.”

A bed with black sheets. A room with gold-papered walls--not the cabin anymore, no, for here there is light, so much that it spills from the windows and tumbles over Leonard’s face, rushes into the dark of Spock’s eyes.

That voice again:

**_Can’t get away with anything with you two around, can I?_ **

And all at once there is a new weight in the bed

**Jim?**

battered bronze against the black

_Jim._

“Hi,” Jim says. “Sorry I’m late.”

He runs a hand through Spock’s hair, finds Leonard’s cheek with the other. “But come on,” he says, his voice sleepy worn, his face soft and rumpled, like he’s two hours off a bender. “Really? You started without me?”

“We did not mean to--” Spock says, sort of, but then Kirk’s kissing him, loud and blazing and beautiful, shit. How long have they both wanted this?

McCoy watches them, pretends he doesn’t feel the salt in his eyes, the water slipping over Jim’s fingers. The way Jim’s hand is going tight on his skin.

Jim breaks away and Spock groans, this low sound of protest that pools in his hips, drives his cock in again rough, possessive, even as Kirk leans down and licks into McCoy’s mouth, his hand still swept in Spock’s hair.

“Hi, honey,” Jim whispers, his lips curving.

McCoy reaches up, traces the lines of Kirk’s face. “Hey, sweetheart.”

Kirk sighs and kisses him again, soft and sweet, even as Spock’s breath stutters, as the bed starts to shake in time with his thrusts.

“Leonard,” he says, helpless. “I need--please, I need you to--”

He grabs McCoy’s hips and hauls him up, away from Kirk’s mouth, bends over him and finds the right angle.

“Fuck, _fuck_ , Spock--”

Kirk chuckles, stretches out at McCoy’s side. “Pretty sure that’s what he’s doing.” He props his head up on his hand and curls towards them, his knuckles brushing Spock’s arm, McCoy’s ribs.

“You’re not helping,” McCoy gets out.

“Mmmm,” Kirk says. “Go on. Make him come on your cock, Spock.”

Spock’s body wrenches and he cries out, wordless.

McCoy turns his head, gets an eyeful of blue. “And what, you’re just gonna lie there, is that it?”

Kirk grins, slow and sneaky. “Who said that?”

His fingers skitter beyond the cage of Spock’s arm, over Leonard’s belly, and gods, even though he knows what’s coming, the first pull is still a shock. McCoy’s body flows up, chasing Kirk’s fist, the heat of Spock’s dick. “Oh, honey,” he says, “oh _fuck_ \--”

“Shhhh,” Jim says. “You’re breaking Spock’s concentration.”

The air is golden and the sheets are the color of midnight, fathoms of stars that turn around the bed, over it, beneath, and Jim is humming in McCoy’s ear, his thumb rubbing firm under the head, over the slit. “He feels good, huh?”

“No shit,” McCoy manages.

“Yeah? You wanna come? I bet Spock wants to see you give it up, don’t you, Spock?”

Words spat through gritted teeth. “Perhaps if you stopped talking and allowed me to focus on--”

“On what? How tight Len is? Mmmm. Gods, you’re big, aren’t you? I bet you had to stretch him out good to get him ready for you, huh. Yeah, you did.” He lets go of McCoy, reaches out and traces the place where they’re joined, his fingers skating through Spock’s slick, over the base of his dick.

“Christ, Jim--”

“Oh, _ashayam_ , Jim, you--”

Now there is noise shoving in great bright waves against the bed, and Kirk groans, pours his own voice into the ardent stars, rocking against McCoy’s hip, his fingers kissing Spock’s side. “Mark him up, Spock. I know that’s what you want. Make him yours from the inside out.”

Spock’s head snaps up and he looks wild, like some ancient, wanton thing. “ _Yes_."

Jim leans up and bites at his mouth, his teeth flashing. “So come on. Do it.”

Then it’s a frenzy, a race, a churn of heat and light and radiance and the sound of Jim’s voice, the feel of him, solid, the beautiful brush of his mind over theirs, the warm welcome caress of the sun, the man around whom they have chosen to have their lives turn.

“Yes,” Kirk murmurs in the midst of the gale, his fist firm again around Leonard’s cock. “Yeah, do you see that? Huh? You’re making him feel so good.”

“We,” McCoy whispers.

“We are,” Spock says.

The sky is all around them, blue and iridescent, unfathomable, the stars awake and alive out there, close enough to touch, and when Spock comes, the stars tumble, spill over the lines of his back and run into the sheets like a river as their light enfolds Leonard’s body, soaks into Jim’s, and the sound Leonard makes when he breaks rivals any nova, something shattering, something else being born.

For a long, sweet time, what he knows is Jim’s hand in his hair, Spock’s mouth on his throat, and then, when he is himself again, Kirk is sandwiched between them, his back against Spock’s chest as he pants into Leonard’s face, his hips moving frantic, chasing Spock’s slow, steady strokes

“Oh,” Jim says, “oh fuck, oh gods, oh _fuck_ , Spock--" 

McCoy kisses him, swallows the sound with his tongue, and splays his hands over Kirk’s chest, smoothing over the warm hollows, the curves.

Kirk’s hands fold around his neck, tug him closer, so close that Spock’s knuckles bump Leonard’s stomach as he works Jim faster and faster, and when McCoy opens his eyes, he finds Spock’s shining back at him around the edge of Kirk’s ear. Spock smiles, this sweet, dangerous thing, and McCoy wants to laugh. They’re of the same mind, aren’t they, and between them, Jim Kirk has no fucking chance.

Spock bites Kirk’s neck and Kirk jumps and Leonard ducks out of his grasp, worms his way down the bed.

“Len,” Kirk gets out, his hands scrabbling, “what--?”

“Shhhh,” Spock chides, and before the sound has left his mouth, McCoy’s licking between Spock’s fingers, catching the heat of Jim’s cock through the spread of Spock’s fevered skin.

It feels like thunder in the valley, like the break of clouds on the tip of his tongue, touching them both like this, and in a moment, Kirk’s body is a ricochet, careening from the pan of Spock’s pelvis to the edge of Leonard’s lips and then in, Spock’s fist falling to the base of his dick and meeting McCoy’s mouth with every thrust.

Jim is saying something, or trying, the threads of his voice tangled with the low sound from Spock’s throat, and McCoy is overwhelmed by the feel of their bodies, by the soft sink of their thoughts within his mind, the love and pleasure and affection that pours over him, fills his eyes and his ears and his mouth and when Jim comes, spills himself over Leonard’s tongue, the tips of Spock’s fingers, Leonard’s blinded by beauty, by the white light of an alien sun, by emotion in his heart, in his head that he knows with a great surge of joy isn’t only his own.

            _Leonard. Leonard?_

In one breath, Jim’s petting his shoulders, Spock’s stroking his cheek, and in the next, Leonard’s overtaken by the smell of the ocean, the brush of the breeze, the slip of the stars beyond clouds. The light around him is lifting though his eyes are now closed and he feels the threads within him loosen, feels Jim’s hands drift from his body, then Spock’s, and he is--

_I know that you can hear me._

\--he is alone, alone with the sea and the sky.

_Doctor, our work is done. Open your eyes._

Somewhere, beyond this place, outside of his mind, his body is waiting. It’s cramped and sore from sitting on the floor, his legs folded beneath him, his shoulder pitched into the hard edge of the cot. The fire has cooled and the night has come again outside, the sky rich plum and the moon stretching its hand through the shadows and settling over Jim’s face.

            _Wake up,_ ashayam _. Come back to us._

Jim, who’s smiling at him, he can feel it, as the last tendrils of Kirk’s thoughts ease their way from his mind.

_Leonard. Open your eyes._

And Spock is--

*****

Spock was staring as Leonard peeled his lids from his cheeks, came all the way back to his body. “Hey,” he said, his voice rough with what tasted like tears. “Did we do it?”

Their shoulders were pressed together and they were turned towards each other, there on the damn wooden floor. It took Leonard a moment to remember that it should’ve been strange, he and Spock being so close, and yet as soon as he remembered, Spock brushed the thought away with his thumb, turned it over the scratch of McCoy’s cheek.

“Yes,” Spock said. “Our efforts were successful. Look.”

Leonard turned his head to find Kirk watching them, his eyes heavy with exhaustion, his lips chasing a shadow of that familiar grin.

McCoy spread his hand over Kirk’s forehead, careful to avoid the now-yellowing bruise. “He’s awake, huh?”

Jim made a vaguely discontented noise. “Don’t talk about me like I’m not here.”

“Mmmhmm.” Leonard got up on his knees, which they did not appreciate, and slid two fingers under Kirk’s ear, feeling for his pulse. “How’re you feeling?”

Kirk caught his wrist, the grip clammy but strong. “Bones,” he said, sandpaper, “I have a headache the size of a warbird and everything fucking hurts and I swear that there’s mud in my ears and if you don’t kiss Spock right the hell now, I’m gonna get out of this bed and do it myself."

There was a hand on McCoy’s back, hot and strong, and it drew him in a pivot, pulled him firm against Spock’s chest. “We cannot have that, can we,” Spock said.

“No,” Leonard said. He wrapped his free arm around Spock’s neck, let Jim keep hold of the other. “We can’t.”

Spock murmured something and eased his mouth over McCoy’s, a chaste and gentle thing that shook something in Leonard’s gut, a tremor that Jim’s hand on his wrist, the sound of his sigh, only intensified. The mental link between them was gone, each man’s thoughts his own again, but there was still this: a fragile chain of blood and skin, of lovers old and new, of the past and a new future, that made McCoy’s heart ache in the sweetest of ways, in the song of the waves.

What had he said to Jim all those years ago? There was no way to know what would happen, if this shift in the order of things would be for good or for ill. But for now, it was enough to be together in this beautiful place, his fingers strung through Kirk’s, Spock’s lips hot and soft against his.

Yes, McCoy thought as Spock’s hand found theirs on the coverlet and the three of them breathed easy into the night--for now, this was more than enough.


	14. Epilogue

In some ways, the  _ Enterprise _ is a far cry from Evaline. There is no sunrise, no cool breeze bearing flowers. There is no blood and no need for a fire.

But there is this: the captain in Spock’s bed, his head on the doctor’s chest, both of them dreaming.

There is also the small scar on the captain’s forehead, just above his hairline, that now has nearly vanished. Spock still feels the echo of fear when he touches it, as he did tonight, when he smoothed his fingertips across it as Kirk sucked his cock, as McCoy pressed him into the pillows with kiss after furious kiss.

He saw McCoy touch it tonight, too, with his lips, a quick kiss before he sat down at their table at the center of the officer’s mess.

“You should let me take care of that,” he’d said at dinner, frowning at Jim over his tray. “Two minutes with the dermaheal, and you’d never know it was there.”

Kirk’s smile was glorious, blinding. “No, come on, Bones. It’s a good memory. Why would I want to forget?” He’d tipped his face to Spock. “Spock agrees with me, don’t you?"

Spock had let his lips twitch, let Kirk see his amusement. “Your scars are your own affair, captain.”

“See?” Jim said, raising his eyebrows at McCoy. “Some of us know how to mind our own business.”

“Well,” McCoy said, “some of us are full of shit.”

But he had been smiling as he said it, was still smiling when Kirk kissed him, later, when Spock did, when they pulled Spock out of his clothes and pushed him into the bed, their mouths firm and insistent.

And when Kirk sank down on him, stretched wet from McCoy’s fingers, his tongue, Spock was the one smiling, his lips turned in a curve that he could not contain, did not want to. Jim had come like that, loose-limbed and beautiful, his hands clutching Spock’s, and Spock had filled him in return, watched Kirk’s face as he felt Spock’s release. He had traced the shimmer of Jim’s thoughts, love and heat and light, as McCoy lifted him free, shifted, pressed Kirk’s face into the sheets and driven inside of him, after, Spock’s hands playing lazy over their skin.

Now, Spock lays beside them, his head on McCoy’s shoulder, and strokes Jim’s face, his forehead, his scar, memory of a now-distant world where they had all found each other, at last.

“Spock,” McCoy mumbles, “I love you, but so help me, if you wake him up, I’ll lock you in the damn sonic.”

He lifts his head, plants a kiss on Leonard’s jaw, and rests his mouth in the turn of the doctor’s throat, at the place where his pulse rises to the edge of his skin. “If you wake him up,” Spock murmurs, “I promise to do the same.”

McCoy chuckles, brushes his lips over Spock’s forehead, and in a moment, he and Kirk are breathing in time.

Spock closes his eyes and follows their breath into the depths, past dunes formed from dreams, and falls asleep to the sound of the waves.


End file.
